Part 45

The magpie is a notable architect, and as a rule builds his nest in a tall tree in or on the borders of a wood; sometimes in a low, isolated tree or large bush, or in the centre of a thick hedge. It is large, and formed of sticks and mud, with a hollow in the centre, plastered with mud and lined with fibrous roots; over this solid platform and nest a large dome of loosely interwoven thorny sticks is built, with a hole in the side just large enough to admit the bird.

Magpies pair for life, and the nest may serve the birds for several years, a little repairing work being bestowed on it each spring. The eggs are usually six in number, but in some cases as many as nine are laid. In colour they are pale bluish green, very thickly spotted and freckled with olive-brown, and faintly blotched with ash-colour.

The magpie may be easily tamed; even the wild birds, when not persecuted, become strongly familiar with man, and come about the house like fowls. In a state of nature he subsists on grubs, worms, snails, slugs, and various insects, and will eat any kind of animal food that offers, not excepting carrion; he also devours young birds and eggs, and is fond of ripe fruit. He is supposed to be a deadly enemy of the poultry-yard, and a stealer of pheasant and partridge chicks; but it is certain that his depredations have been greatly exaggerated.

Jackdaw.

Corvus monedula.

Crown and upper parts black with violet reflections; back of the head and nape grey; iris white; under parts dull black. Length, fourteen inches.

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It is hard to pronounce which of our indigenous corvine species is the most interesting. They are all wonderful birds; and to those who have made pets of, and studied them, and know them intimately as most of us know our dogs, they appear to excel other feathered creatures in the quality of mind, just as thrushes, larks, and warblers do in that of melody, and as terns and others of the more aërial kinds excel in graceful motions. If the jackdaw is not the first of his family in intelligence, he is certainly not behind any of them. In beauty he does not compete with the three species already described--chough, jay, and pie--and at a distance is only a lesser rook or carrion crow in appearance; but there is a peculiar look about this bird when seen closely that engages and holds the attention more than mere beauty or grace. When he is sitting in repose, his head drawn in and beak inclining downwards, and turns his face to you, it does not look quite like a bird’s face: the feathers puffed out all round make the head appear preternaturally large, and the two small, bright, whitish grey eyes set close together in the middle have an expression of craft that is somewhat human and a little uncanny.

The jackdaw is one of the birds that the gamekeeper wars against without ruth, shooting and trapping them in the breeding season, especially when they are occupied in feeding their young, and can be seen and easily shot in their frequent journeys to and from the nesting-tree. But the jackdaw is not so easy to extirpate as some of its congeners. He is probably just as common as he ever was, while the chough is rapidly dying out, and crow and jay and pie are yearly diminishing in numbers, and the raven, driven from its inland haunts, clings to existence in the wildest and most inaccessible parts of the coast. The reason of this is that the jackdaw is more adaptive than the other species. He has been compared in this respect to the house-sparrow, for he can exist in town as well as country, and readily adapts himself to new surroundings. The variety of sites he uses for breeding purposes shows how plastic are his habits. He breeds apart from his fellows, like the carrion crow; or in communities, like the rook and chough. He builds in hollow trees in parks and woods, in rabbit-burrows, in ruins, church-towers, and buildings of all kinds; and in holes and crevices in cliffs, whether inland or facing the sea, where he lives in company with the rock-pigeon and the puffin. ‘At Flamborough,’ Seebohm says, ‘the jackdaws are very abundant. A republican might call them the aristocracy of the cliffs. Like the modern noble, or the monks of the Middle Ages, they contrive to eat the fat of the land without any ostensible means of living. They apparently claim an hereditary right in the cliffs; for they catch no fish, and do no work, but levy blackmail on the silly guillemots, stealing the fish which the male has brought to the ledges for the female, upsetting the egg of some unfortunate bird who has left it for a short time, and devouring as much of its contents as they can get hold of, when the egg is broken, on some ledge of rock or in the sea.’

The social disposition of the jackdaw, and its friendliness towards other species of its family, is no doubt favourable in the long run to it; for by mixing with the rooks, both when feeding and roosting, he comes in for a share of the protection extended to that bird in most districts. There is also a sentiment favourable to the jackdaw on account of its partiality for churches and castles: the ‘ecclesiastical’ daws are safe and fearless of man while soaring and playing round the sacred buildings in villages and towns; when they go abroad to forage, and are not with the rooks, there is danger for them, and they are, accordingly, wary and shy of man.

At all seasons the jackdaw loves to consort with his fellows, and to spend a portion of each day in aërial games and exercises: the birds circle about in the air, pursuing and playfully buffeting one another, and tumbling downwards, often from a great height, only to mount aloft again, to renew the mock chase and battle and downward fall. They are loquacious birds, and frequently call loudly to one another, both when perched and when flying; the usual call-note has a clear, sharp, querulous sound, something like the yelping bark of a small dog.

The nest is a rude structure made with sticks, dry grass, leaves, wool, and other materials heaped together, and is large or small according to the situation; when in a church-tower or hollow tree an enormous quantity of material is sometimes used to fill up the cavity. The eggs are four to six in number, and vary much in size, shape, and markings. They are very pale blue, varying to greenish blue, in ground-colour, and are spotted and blotched with blackish brown and olive-brown, with pinkish grey under-markings.

The jackdaw is omnivorous, but subsists principally on worms, grubs, and insects, which it picks up in the pastures where it feeds in company with rooks and starlings. In spring it will eat the newly sown grain, in autumn devours acorns and beech-mast, and in winter will stoop to carrion.

In captivity the jackdaw makes a clever and amusing pet, and may be taught to repeat a few words.

Carrion Crow.

Corvus corone.

Black with green and violet reflections; iris dark hazel; lower part of the beak covered with bristly feathers. Length, nineteen inches.

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The common, black, or carrion crow so closely resembles the rook in form, size, and colouring as to be indistinguishable from it when seen at a distance. Viewed nearer it is seen to have the base of the beak clothed with feathers, instead of naked and grey, as is the case in the more common bird. The young rook may, however, be mistaken for a crow even when very near, as its face is feathered like the crow’s. In voice the two birds differ, that of the crow being louder and very much harsher--more like the raven’s croak than the familiar hoarse, but not disagreeable, caw of the rook. In summer he may be identified by his solitary habits. He has a very much worse reputation than the species he so nearly resembles: both game-preserver and farmer regard him as a pest, and he is said to be the most persecuted bird in this country. But somehow, in spite of all that is done to extirpate him utterly, he manages to keep a pretty strong hold on life, although he is not common. He inhabits all of the British Islands, chiefly England and Wales; in the central and northern parts of Scotland, and in Ireland, he is rarely met with, his place in those countries being taken by the hooded crow. When not engaged in breeding the crow is to some extent gregarious, and is also social, associating both in the fields and at roosting-time with rooks and jackdaws. And it is probable that this habit has been of great advantage to him, and may even have saved the species from extermination, for while among the rooks he easily passes for a rook. That he is exceptionally sagacious, and very careful to keep out of reach of his deadly human enemies, goes without saying; he is a member of a family ranking high in intelligence; and being so large and conspicuous a bird, his life is one of incessant danger. In selecting a site for his nest his intelligence is sometimes at fault. Not only is the nest a large structure, but, with a strange fatuity, the bird will at times build in a conspicuous place near a house. On the coast he is, like the raven and jackdaw, a nester in cliffs; inland he usually builds in or on a large tree, and if the nest is allowed to remain he will use it for several years. The nest is a large platform, made of sticks, weeds, pieces of turf, and other materials, with a hollow in the centre neatly lined with fine grass, wool, hairs, and feathers. The eggs are four to six in number, in ground-colour pale bluish green, spotted and blotched with various shades of olive-brown, with purplish grey underlying blotches.

When there are young to feed the crow is exceedingly active; he is then most destructive to young pheasants and other game, and is a troublesome neighbour to the poultry. Young and weakly birds are dropped upon and picked up with astonishing adroitness and rapidity. He will pounce upon and carry off any small and easily conquered animal to satisfy his nestful of voracious young. At other times he is omnivorous: a carrion-eater like the raven, and devourer of dead stranded fish and other animal refuse cast up by the sea; in the pastures he searches for worms and grubs with the rooks; and when occasion offers he feeds on grain, berries, walnuts, and fruit. He appears to have a greater appetite than most species: he is said to be the first bird astir in the morning, and from dawn until sunset he is engaged incessantly in seeking food.

His flight resembles that of the rook, but is somewhat heavier.

Hooded Crow.

Corvus cornix.

Head, throat, wings, and tail black; the rest of the plumage ash-grey; iris brown. Length, nineteen and a half inches.

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This bird, which is also known as the hoodie, Royston crow, grey or grey-backed crow, and by other names, is now regarded by some of our first authorities on such subjects as a form of the carrion crow. In England and Wales it is very rare. In Ireland, where the black crow is almost unknown, it is common; it is also found throughout Scotland and the Western Islands as a resident breeding species. In winter, hooded crows visit the east coast of England in large numbers, and are specially abundant on the Lincolnshire coast, where they feed on shellfish and animal refuse left by the tide on the extensive mud flats. These seaside crows that wait on the tide come to us from the north of Europe, and leave our shores in spring.

Excepting in the matter of colour--one bird being wholly black and the other grey on the back and under parts--the black and grey crows are identical in size, language, and in all their habits, and what has been said of the carrion crow applies to the present species.

Rook.