326 
CORVID J£. 
he believed, for their young. The first foray of certain country 
jackdaws, in the early morning, is to the town, where they are very 
punctual in making their appearance : on the 11th of June, I 
once noted their arrival at 45 minutes past 3 o’clock.* Here 
they are quite innocuous ; but in the country, they occasionally 
levy contributions. Montagu has remarked, that they are “ fond 
of cherries,” to the truth of which, many of the gardeners about 
Belfast could bear testimony. Of all birds they are the most 
destructive to this fruit. A friend on one occasion coming upon a 
number regaling in one of his cherry-trees, fired at them, with- 
out reflecting on the damage he must necessarily do to the 
tree, and five fell dead to the ground. They and other species, 
particularly blackbirds ( Turdus Merula), for some years entirely 
consumed the crop of cherries on a number of fine tall standard 
trees which could not conveniently be netted, and in conse- 
quence of their depredations, the trees were all cut down. The 
cherry-trees in the garden of another friend, resident in the neigh- 
bourhood of Belfast, were sacrificed for a similar reason. In a 
district well known to me, jackdaws generally associate with rooks, 
and hence participate both in the good and evil done by these 
birds to the farm ; though, as mentioned in treating of the rook, 
the former greatly preponderates. In a wild and uncultivated 
part of the northern coast of the island, I have in summer re- 
marked flocks of these birds feeding on the sea-shore between 
tide-marks, and among large stones, grown over with Fad. 
The sites chosen by the jackdaw for perching are frequently 
amusing. I have observed four of them, in flying to a vane, 
alight with the most correct regularity on the letters N. E. S. W., 
while a fifth surmounted the ball, and thus would they remain 
stationed for some time, looking “part and parcel” of the weather- 
cock. On the head of Nelson, as he stands erect in all his 
majesty on the top of the pillar which bears his name in Sackville 
Street, Dublin, I have seen the jackdaw alight, and impart an air 
* On the 15th of June, 1847, jackdaws were calling and flying about London at 
3 o’clock in the morning. 
