Part 17

The most striking characteristic of the jay is its tireless energy, and a liveliness of disposition and alertness almost without a parallel among British birds; even the restless, prying, chattering magpie seems a quiet creature beside it; and as to the other corvine birds, they are by comparison a sedate family. Like the magpie, he is an excitable and vociferous bird, and has a curious and varied language. When disturbed in his woodland haunts he utters a scream that startles the hearer, so loud and harsh and piercing is it. Richard Jefferies well describes it as being like the sound made in tearing a piece of calico. He also has a lower, monotonous, rasping note, which he will continue uttering for half an hour at a time when his curiosity or suspicion has been excited. In the love season he utters a variety of sounds by way of song, and as they resemble the notes of the starling, sparrow, and other birds, he is supposed to be a mocker. In captivity he can be taught to speak a few words; but it is possible that the various sounds composing his vocal performance in the woods are his own.

In spring he becomes somewhat social, and unites in noisy parties; at other times he is solitary, or lives with his mate.

Owing to an excessively wary and suspicious habit, engendered by much persecution, it is difficult to observe him narrowly for any length of time. In the woods and plantations, few and far between, where jays are not persecuted, and do not associate the human figure with a sudden shower of murderous pellets, he will allow a nearer approach, and it is then a rare pleasure to study him on his perch. He does not, as a rule, rest long in one place, and when perched is of so active and excitable a temper that he cannot keep still for three seconds at a stretch. The wings and tail are raised, and depressed, and flirted, the crest alternately lowered and elevated, the head turned from side to side, as the wild, bright eyes glance in this or that direction. If he should by chance place himself where a stray sunbeam falls through the foliage on him, lighting up his fine reddish brown plumage, variegated with black and white and beautiful blue, he shows as one of the handsomest birds that inhabit the woodlands.

The jay makes his nest in a bush or sapling at no great height from the ground; the lower branch of a large tree is sometimes made choice of, where the nest is well concealed by the close foliage; a thick holly or other evergreen is also a favourite site. The nest is built of sticks and twigs, sometimes mixed with mud, and the cup-shaped cavity is lined with fine roots. Four to seven eggs are laid, pale greyish green in ground-colour, thickly freckled, and spotted all over with pale olive-brown. The young birds follow their parents for some weeks after leaving the nest.

The jay is omnivorous, but in summer feeds mainly on slugs, worms, grubs, and insects of all kinds; in this season he devours berries and fruit--plums, cherries, also peas and currants; and in autumn, nuts, beech-mast, and acorns. He also plunders the smaller birds of their eggs and young, and is said to carry off pheasant and partridge chicks. He is a keen mouser, and after killing a mouse with two or three sharp blows on the head, strips the skin off before devouring it. Like the nuthatch and some other species, he has the habit of concealing the food he does not want to eat at once.

Magpie.

Pica rustica.

Head, throat, neck, and back velvet-black; scapulars and under plumage white; tail much graduated, and, as well as the wings, black, with lustrous blue and green reflections; beak and feet black. Length, eighteen inches.

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In spite of his evil reputation, the magpie is regarded by most persons who are not breeders of pheasants with exceptional interest, and even affection. He has some very attractive qualities, and is one of that trio of corvine birds--pie, chough, and jay--from which it is difficult to single out the most beautiful. The most conspicuous he undoubtedly is, in his black and white plumage; and his figure, with its long, graduated tail, is also the most elegant. In his habits there is abundant variety, and in sagacity he is probably unsurpassed by any member of the corvine family, which counts so many wily brains. His excessive cunning and rapid rate of increase have probably served to save him from the fate that has overtaken the hen harrier and marsh-harrier, and many another beautiful member of the British avifauna. As it is, he has been almost extirpated throughout a large part of England and Scotland. In Ireland, however, he is still a common species, but, oddly enough, he is not indigenous to that country. It is believed that he first appeared there about, or a little more than, two centuries and a half ago. How he got there is not known. According to Yarrell, there is a widespread belief in Ireland that the magpie was imported into that island by the English out of spite.

[Illustration: FIG. 55.--MAGPIE. ⅑ natural size.]

The magpie is as singular in his motions, gestures, and flight as he is beautiful in colour and elegant in form. On the wing he appears most conspicuous when the white webs of the quills are displayed. The wings are very short, and the flight is slow and somewhat wavering, and at every three or four yards there is an interval of violent wing-beats, during which the black and white of the quills mix and become nearly grey. High in the air he has a most curious appearance; as a rule he flies low, passing from tree to tree, or along the side of a hedge. He seeks his food on the ground, and his movements are then utterly unlike those of any other ground-feeder. His manner of running and hopping about, flinging up his tail; his antics and little, excited dashes, now to this side, now to that, give the idea that he is amusing himself with some solitary game rather than seeking food. Richard Jefferies has given so accurate and vivid a picture of the bird in his ‘Wild Life in a Southern County’ that I cannot refrain from quoting it in this place. ‘To this hedge the hill-magpie comes; some magpies seem to keep entirely to the downs, while others range the vale, though there is no apparent difference between them. His peculiar uneven, and, so to say, flickering flight marks him out at a distance, as he jauntily journeys along beside the slope. He visits every fir-copse and beech-clump in his way, spending some time, too, in and about the hawthorn hedge, which is a favourite spot. Sometimes in the spring, when the corn is yet short and green, if you glance carefully through an opening in the bushes, or round the side of the gateway, you may see him busy on the ground. His rather excitable nature betrays itself in every motion: he walks, now to the right a couple of yards, now to the left in quick zigzag, so working across the field towards you; then, with a long rush, he makes a lengthy traverse at the top of his speed; turns, and darts away again at right angles; and presently up goes his tail, and he throws his head down with a jerk of the whole body, as if he would thrust his beak deep into the earth. This habit of searching the field, apparently for some favourite grub, is evidence in his favour that he is not so entirely guilty as he has been represented of innocent blood. No bird could be approached in that way. All is done in a jerky, nervous manner. As he turns sideways, the white feathers show with a flash above the green corn; another moment, and he looks all black.’

In disposition the magpie is restless, inquisitive, excitable, and loquacious. Where he is greatly persecuted by gamekeepers--as, indeed, is the case almost everywhere in England--he grows so wary that, in spite of his conspicuous colouring, it would be almost impossible to get a glimpse of him, were it not for his outbursts of irrepressible excitement and garrulity. The sight of a stoat, fox, or prowling cat will instantly cause him to forget the more dangerous keeper and his gun, and to fill the coppice with cries of alarm. The feathered inhabitants of the wood hurry from all sides to ascertain the cause of the outcry, and assist in driving out the intruder. But the keeper, too, hears; this is the opportunity he has been long watching and waiting for; and if he approaches the scene of excitement with due caution, poor beautiful Mag, dead, and shattered with shot, will soon be added to his festering trophies.

The usual sound emitted by the magpie is an excited chatter--a note with a hard, percussive sound, rapidly repeated half a dozen times. It may be compared to the sound of a wooden rattle, or to the bleating of a goat; but there is always a certain resemblance to the human voice in it, especially when the birds are unalarmed, and converse with one another in subdued tones. But it is more like the guttural voice of the negro than the white man’s voice. Their subdued chatter has sometimes produced in me the idea that I was listening to the low talking and laughing of a couple of negroes lying on their backs somewhere near. It is well known that this bird can be taught to articulate a few words.

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.’

[Illustration: ROOKS. JACKDAWS. STARLINGS.]

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.

Corvus frugilegus.

Black with purple and violet reflections; base of the beak, nostrils, and region round the beak bare of feathers, and covered with a white scurf; iris greyish white. Length, eighteen inches.

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