*

them fell on its back into the fork of an ash tree, from which it was unable to extricate itself, and died from the pressure. Rooks sometimes scratch like hens, and I once in the month of June saw some busily engaged tearing ants, of a small black species, out of their ant-hills. They take great pleasure in washing themselves, and will walk deliberately into a river up to their bellies, and splash away like so many ducks. They frequent the banks of rivers during inundations, and occasionally even venture some way into the water in search of food."

My correspondent remarks, that in addition to its ordinary prey, he has observed the rook repeatedly fly up from the ground like a stonechat, to catch flies; to turn over the stones in very hot weather in search, as was believed, of beetles and worms; and to exhibit a carnivorous propensity so far as to fly off with the decayed body of a rat.

"About June and July, rooks suffer great privation, from the burnt up condition of the ground rendering it almost impossible to reach their natural sustenance: hence the proverb rife about here, As hungry as a June crow.' A large number of young ones remain all night in the open country, resorting separately to hedge-rows, or small groves, and seeming in a great degree to lose the congregating instinct of their species. The country-people think they can smell powder, and fear it even before it is exploded. A woman came to me lately for a little pinch to burn on a potato-ridge to keep off the crows."+

In the winter of 1846, about Christmas, these birds were frequently observed (by Mr. R. Warren, junr.,) to stoop down to the water in Cork harbour, and pick dead or dying sprats (Clupea

* "In the beginning of the breeding-season of the present year, a rook unfortunately got entangled in the thick branches of a large tree, adjacent to Castle Warren, the seat of Robert Warren, Esq., county of Cork. The other rooks seeing its hapless condition attacked, and soon put an end to its existence, notwithstanding the vigorous but ineffectual efforts of its mate to defend it. Since that time the dead body is daily visited by a rook, which also roosts by it every night. This rook is supposed to be the mate; if so, it is indeed "fidelity in death!"* Mr. R. Taylor of Belfast, who made the communication, has informed me that the rook roosted regularly as described, beside its ill-fated companion, for two months.

sprattus) from the surface with their bills. They seemed to live for some time almost wholly on these fish, among which there was a great fatality.

In Scotland, these birds have, by suiting themselves to circumstances, come under my observation in different ways from what they have done in Ireland. I have for many miles along the coast of Ayrshire met with them in the autumn, feeding among the fresh sea-weed or rejectamenta of the receding tide; and at other times they were crowded in search of food upon the heaps of seaweed collected on the beach for manure. About two miles inland from Ballantrae, in Ayrshire, a few hundreds of these birds, in the autumn of 1839, regularly roosted on the ground upon a rising knoll in a pasture-field. I first saw them there at 8 o'clock, P.M., on the 20th of August; and afterwards, on returning late from grouse-shooting in distant moors, they were always to be seen. This roosting-place was in the midst of a cultivated district, in which there was no wood of sufficient age to be patronized by the rook.

At the commencement of a snow-storm in England, and after the ground became well covered, I was once amused at seeing a rook rolling in the snow, apparently enjoying itself as much as a Newfoundland dog could have done.* In summer I have met with the rook in Holland, France, and Switzerland, and in some parts of the first-named country have observed it to be as common as at its chief haunts in the British Islands. At the Hotel Bellevue, which is situated close to the king's park at the Hague, I for the first time experienced the evils of a rookery, the cawing from a closely adjacent one being so incessant from daybreak, as to drive all sleep from me, unaccustomed as I was to such music;—this was at the end of May, when the calls of the young are almost constantly uttered.

The rook has attracted the attention of authors possessing a celebrity of very different kinds. In the Bracebridge Hall of Washington Irving, an admirable chapter is devoted to it. Gold

* Waterton, in his Essays on Natural History, mentions a tame raven acting similarly.

smith gives a very interesting account of it in the Temple Gardens, London, as observed by himself. A most graphic description of its manner of life about Selborne is furnished by White. Sir Wm. Jardine introduces it in a picturesque manner as an adjunct to the scenery of the park. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, in one of his series of very interesting papers on Scottish Rivers, published in Tait's Magazine, *--that on the Tyne--gives in connection with Ormiston Hall, a full account of the proceedings of a colony of rooks, "from morn to latest eve;" and Mr. Macgillivray, as if conceiving that the subject of the bird's habits by day had already been exhausted, imparts a new feature to the history of the species, by visiting a rookery at night, and relating the proceedings at that period.

THE JACKDAW.

Corvus monedula, Linn.

Is found throughout the island, especially where the labour of man is evinced by buildings, the plantation of trees, and the cultivation of the ground.

BUT it is much more interesting to meet with this bird in the bold and precipitous cliffs,-be they inland or marine,-which are its natural abode.

The basaltic precipices of the north-east of Ireland are much resorted to by these birds, as building haunts. I have also observed them in the month of October, of different years, at the approach of evening, to gather in as great numbers as during summer, to roost among the rocks at the Cavehill, near Belfast. At the wild peninsula of the Horn, county of Donegal, they breed in the marine cliffs, as they do within caverns of very small islands about three miles distant from the coast of Kerry (Neligan). On the 29th of May, 1836, I saw many jackdaws at the precipitous sandy banks rising above the beach of Lough Neagh, at Massareene deer-park, where they breed in holes, all of which were said by the gamekeeper to be the deserted burrows of rabbits. Jack

* February, 1848, p. 98.

daws breed in numbers in the rabbit holes on low earthy knolls, in Hillsborough Park (Down). The gamekeeper one morning in May, 1847, took from 150 to 170 eggs out of the nests with his hands, without any digging. They were about arm's length from the entrance. The eggs were destroyed, on account of the birds being supposed to annoy the rabbits by partly filling up their burrows with sticks, numbers of which, that the jackdaws evidently could not get into the holes, lie about the place. The nests are built of dried grasses and roots, intermixed with a few pieces of stick. The eyes of the young birds can be seen by persons looking into the holes. Old trees are abundant in this demesne, as well as in Massareene Park, where these birds similarly take advantage of the burrows of the rabbit. At Springmount, county of Antrim, three or four pair build annually, like magpies, in the tree-tops. Jackdaws are more prolific than the rook or the grey crow; they occasionally lay six eggs.

June the 21st, 1842. At the cliffs adjacent to Dunluce Castle, on the northern coast of Antrim, I was much amused by witnessing the attack of jackdaws on a grey crow, which appeared over the cliffs where they build. First, one sallied boldly after and struck him repeatedly; it was almost instantly joined by a second, which was immediately followed by a third, all of them dashing at the crow, and striking him both from above and below. The persecuted bird turned back and alighted on the turf near the summit of the cliff, as did two of the jackdaws also, but at a respectful distance. The crow maintained his ground boldly, and looked,―for all was conducted on both sides in solemn silence, -as much as to say, "Come on, I'm ready for you both." The jackdaws too, for a time, remained perfectly still, but eventually approached within a yard or two of their enemy, and then flew off, leaving him at the very spot on which he had alighted. The whole was pantomimic, not a note being uttered by any of the three birds. Soon after the jackdaw's departure, the crow took wing and flew again over the cliff, when he was attacked just as before, with the difference, that on this occasion the jackdaws were very vociferous, and the croak of the crow was occasionally uttered. He did not

mind their buffetings in the air, this time, but held on his course: --such, I have remarked to be the usual proceeding of grey crows when driven by magpies from the vicinity of their nests. Though they will return again and again after being beaten off, I have never seen them offer the least violence to the parent-birds, thus always seeming as if they were too much conscience-stricken to do so. To-day, the crow could hardly be doing any harm, as a number of the young jackdaws were able to fly about; there may however have been some young broods. When walking along Carnlough bay, on the 25th of May, I remarked several jackdaws flying singly towards the cliff in which they build, each of them displaying beneath the bill a well filled pouch of food for their mates or young. How singularly these and other species of the Corvida sometimes drop down the perpendicular face of a precipice as if they were shot!

A pair of these birds built annually for a number of years in the same hole of a wall about twelve feet from the ground, at Castle Warren. Jackdaws caused great annoyance for some years by building in the chimneys of this castle, and filling them up with sticks ;—of which, a few nearly six feet in length, were used. Eventually a wire-grating was placed across the top of the chimneys to prevent their access, which it did effectually. They continued, however, to re-visit them every season, with the view of resuming occupation.

*

Church towers and steeples, as well as chimneys,† are commonly resorted to for nesting-places. They are generally described as late breeding birds; but a most accurate observer once observed them on the 22nd of March, carrying building materials to a chimney in Belfast; as he did to other chimneys on the 20th of that month: on the 7th of April, he saw them conveying food, as

* In the tower of a country church near Belfast, jackdaws had in the course of time accumulated such quantities of sticks, that cart-loads of them had to be removed before some repairs on the building could be commenced.

The burning of Shane's Castle (the mansion of Earl O'Neil, situated on the borders of Lough Neagh), which happened about thirty years ago, was believed to have been caused by the dry sticks forming the nests of jackdaws in one of the chimneys, having caught fire. One of the fires at York Minster has been attributed to the

same cause.