The reason of it I fancy is plain enough; it is simply the sentiment I have spoken of. In a small way it has always existed in certain places, in towns, where the jackdaw is associated in our minds with cathedrals and church towers--where he is the "ecclesiastical daw"; but the modern wider toleration is due to the character, the personality, of the bird itself, which is more or less like that of all the members of the corvine family, with the exception of the rook, who always tries his best to be an honest, useful citizen; but it is not precisely the same. They may be regarded as bad hats generally In the bird community, and on this very account--"I'm sorry to say," to quote Mr. Pecksniff--they touch a chord in us; and the daw being the genial rascal in feathers par excellence is naturally the best loved. It has thus come about that of all the Corvidae the daw is now the favourite as a pet bird, and in the domestic condition he is accorded more liberty than is given to other species. We think he makes better use of his freedom, that he does not lose touch with his human friends when allowed to fly about, and appears more capable of affection. Formerly, the raven and magpie came first as pets. The raven vanished as a pet, because like the goshawk, kite, and buzzard, he was extirpated in the interests of the game-preserver and hen-wife. The magpie was then first, and has only been recently ousted from that ancient, honourable position. The pie was a superior bird as a feathered pet in a cage; he is beautiful in shape and colour in his snow-white and metallic dark-green and purple-glossed plumage, and his long graduated tail. Moreover, he is a clever bird. To my mind there is no more fascinating species when I can find it in numbers, in places where it is not persecuted, and is accustomed to congregate at intervals, not as rooks and starlings do merely because they are gregarious, but purely for social purposes--to play and converse with one another. Its language at such times is so various as to be a surprise and delight to the listener; while its ways of amusing itself, its clowning and the little tricks and practical jokes the birds are continually playing on each other, are a delight to witness. All this is lost in a caged bird. He is handsome to look at and remarkably intelligent, but he distinguishes between magpies and men; he doesn't reveal himself; his accomplishments, vocal and mental, are for his own tribe. In this he differs from the daw; for the daw is less specialized; he is an undersized common crow, livelier, more impish than that bird, also more plastic, more adaptive, and takes more kindly to the domestic or parasitic life. Human beings to him are simply larger daws, and unlike the pie he can play his tricks and be himself among them as freely as when with his feathered comrades. We like him best because he makes himself one of us.