and insects; and builds in ancient castles, towers, cliffs, and all desolate and ruinous places. The female lays five or six eggs, smaller, paler, and marked with fewer spots than those of the crow. Jackdaws are easily tamed, and may with a little difficulty be taught to pronounce several words. They conceal such parts of their food as they cannot eat, and often, along with it, small pieces of money or toys, frequently occasioning, for the moment, suspicions of theft in persons who are innocent. In Switzerland there is found a variety of the Jackdaw which has a white ring round its neck. In Norway, and other cold countries, they have been seen entirely white. RESEMBLES the daw, except in the whiteness of the breast and wings, and the length of the tail. The black of his feathers is accompanied with a changing gloss of green and purple. It is a very loquacious creature, and can be brought to imitate the human voice as well as any parrot. Plutarch relates a singular story of a Magpie belonging to a barber at Rome. This bird could imitate, to a wonderful extent, almost every noise that it heard. Some trumpets happened one day to be sounded before the shop; and for a day or two afterwards the Magpie was quite mute, and seemed pensive and melancholy. This surprised all who knew it; and they supposed the sound of the trumpets had so stunned the bird, as to deprive it at the same time of voice and hearing. This, however, was not the case; for, says this writer, the bird had been all the time occupied in profound meditation, and was studying how to imitate the sound of the trumpets: accordingly, in the first attempt, it perfectly imitated all their repetitions, stops, and changes. This new lesson, however, made it entirely forget every thing that it had learned before. The Magpie feeds on every thing; worms, insects, meat and cheese, bread and milk, all kinds of seeds; and also on small birds, when they come in his way: the young of the blackbird, and of the thrush, and even a strayed chicken, often fall a prey to his rapacity. He is fond of hiding pieces of money or wearing apparel, which he carries away by stealth, and with much dexterity, to his hole. His cunning is also remarked in the manner of making his nest, which he covers all over with thorny branches, leaving only one hole for his ingress and egress, securing, in that manner, his beloved brood from the attack of their enemies. Gisborne thus describes this lively bird, in his "Walks in a Forest:" From bough to bough the restless Magpie roves, Is less than the magpie, and resembles him more in the habits of his life than in the shape and colour of his body. Talkative, and ready to imitate all sounds, as is the former, yet he can boast of ornamental colours, which the magpie is deprived of. Nothing can, on the palette of the ablest painter, equal the brightness of the chequered tablets of white, black, and blue, which adorn the sides of his wings. His head is covered with feathers, which are moveable at his will, and their motion is expressive of the internal affections of the bird, whether he is stimulated by fear, anger, or desire. A Jay, kept by a person in the north of England, had learned, at the approach of cattle, to set a cur dog upon them, by whistling and calling him by his name. One winter during a severe frost, the dog was by this means excited to attack a cow that was big with calf, when the poor oor animal fell on the ice and was much hurt. The Jay was complained of as a nuisance, and its owner was obliged to destroy it. The hen lays five or six eggs, of a dull white colour, mottled with brown. THE CORNISH CHOUGH Is like the jackdaw in shape and colour of body, but bigger in size. The bill and legs are in the former of a red colour, and are generally painted so in heraldry, where the bird has been for centuries a very common bearing. He is not only an inhabitant of Cornwall, but also of Wales, and of all the western coasts of England. He is generally to be found among rocks near the sea; and builds there, as well as in old ruinous castles and churches on the sea side. The voice of the Chough resembles that of the jackdaw, except that it exceeds it in hoarseness and strength. The Scarecrow frequents the fens of Lincolnshire, and belongs to the tern kind. He is about the size of a blackbird. The wings are long, as compared with the size of the body. The under part of the belly is white, and the legs red; the neck, head, and back are black; the back and coverts of the wings of a gray ash colour. We have searched for the cause of this bird bearing such a name, which is generally given to any thing set up in order to frighten birds from gardens and newly sown grounds: but we must fairly confess that we have failed in our inquiries. Has been called so, we may fairly suppose, on account of his being generally seen on the wing, and flying in the torrid zone at a small distance from the land. Its appearance being most welcome to the tired sailor and longing passenger, generally causes much happiness by its foretelling the vicinity of terra firma. The head is small, but adorned with colours which can vie with the brightest hues of the peacock's embellishments ; the neck is of a fawn tint, and the body very small, but covered with long feathers of a browner hue, tinged with gold; the two middle feathers of the tail |