3 12 
FERCHING BIRDS. 
In the autumn the rooks band together to plunder cornfields. They also do 
much mischief to young turnips, often tearing up thousands of newly-planted 
seedlings; and in severe weather they attack the roots of the turnips, or devour 
such small birds as have become too enfeebled by want of food to elude their 
enemies. During the greater part of the year they are gregarious, and many of 
their established “ rookeries ” contain myriads of birds every night. Their sagacity 
enables them to evade the various forms of destruction which reduce the numbers 
of other birds, and, as they are extremely long-lived, the rapid increase in their 
numbers has become somewhat alarming. Though less easily reconciled to captivity 
than other members of the family, they are nevertheless lively and amusing pets. 
The daw or iackdaw (C. monedula) is readily distinguished from 
Jackdaw \ / «/ o 
other crows by its small size, less powerful bill, and slaty-grey collar, 
the remainder of the plumage being entire black in the western form. The 
typical European daw is replaced in Northern Asia and Japan by Pallas’s daw 
( C. dauricus), which wears a broad collar of ashy white and has a white belly. 
The daw is distributed locally throughout temperate Europe, and is very abundant 
in parts of Algeria. A highly gregarious species even in the breeding-season, it 
forms colonies in low cliffs, nesting numerously in the holes and recesses formed 
by weathering. Elsewhere single pairs appropriate disused rooks’ nests, adapting 
them to their own purposes. Not the least remarkable of the many idiosyncrasies 
of this familiar bird, is the readiness with which it contents itself with every 
variety of nesting site, rearing its young as happily in a disused rabbit-hole as in 
the belfry of a church. The nest is often a cumbrous pile of sticks, carefully lined 
with hair, wool, or other soft material. The eggs vary in number from four to 
six, and are bluish green spotted with grey and brown. Mr. Tait says that the 
jackdaws frequenting the islands on the coast of Galicia breed in holes under the 
stones, and follow the droves of pigs, in order to secure the insects which these 
animals turn up when grubbing in the soil with their snouts. While the pig 
ploughs up the ground, they may often be seen perching on its back, waiting their 
opportunity. During seasons of drought jackdaws are sometimes compelled by 
hunger to commit serious depredations upon the pheasant-coops, in consequence 
of the earthworms upon which these birds largely subsist having retired from the 
surface to secure moisture at a greater depth. This species does not appear to 
make the migratory journeys frequently accomplished by rooks and hooded crows, 
the daw being in fact of a somewhat sedentary character, as evinced by the 
attachment which it displays for favourite nesting sites. A black variety of the 
European jackdaw, in which the usual grey collar has become entirely suppressed, 
has been regarded by some naturalists as a valid species. Although these are 
rare, white jackdaws are sufficiently plentiful. Examples of a uniform silver-grey 
occur from time to time, but are less frequently met with than white or pied 
birds. 
The Nutcrackers r ^ ie genus Nucifraga contains only four species, three of which 
’are designated nutcrackers from their partiality for nuts and other 
fruits. The American representative of the genus is Clarke’s crow {N. Columbiana), 
a plain grey-coloured bird with glossy black wings, most of the secondaries broadly 
tipped with white, and the tail white, with the exception of the black central 
