Undoubtedly the chough comes nearest to the daw mentally, and as it is a far more beautiful bird--the poor daw having little of that quality--it would probably have been our prime favourite among the crows but for its rarity. Formerly it was a common pet bird, caged or free, in all the coast districts where it inhabited, and it may be that the desire for a pet chough was the cause of its decline and final disappearance all round the south and west coasts of England, except at one spot near Tintagel where half a dozen pairs still exist only because watchers appointed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are always on the spot to warn off the nest-robbers during the breeding season. But of the chough in captivity or as a domesticated bird we know little now, as no records have been preserved. I have only known one bird, taken from a North Devon cliff about forty years ago, at a house near the coast; a very beautiful pet bird with charming, affectionate ways, always free to range about the country and the cliffs, where it associated with the daws. It was the last of its kind at that place, and I do not know if it still lives. Next to the chough the jay comes nearest to the daw mentally of all our crows, and as he excels most of our wild birds in beauty he would naturally have been a first favourite as a pet but for the fact that it is only in a state of nature in which he is like the daw--lively, clever, impish; in captivity he is more like the magpie and affiliates even less than that bird with his human associates. In confinement he is a quiet, almost sedate, certainly a silent bird: He is essentially a woodland species; all his graces, his various, often musical, language, with many imitations of bird and animal sounds, and his spectacular games and pretty wing displays, are for his own people exclusively. He must have his liberty in the woods and a company of his fellow-jays to exhibit his full lustre. The difference between jay and daw is similar to that between fox and dog; or rather let us say, between one of the small desert foxes of Syria and Egypt--the fennec, for instance--and the jackal, the domestic dog's progenitor; the first gifted with exquisite grace and beauty, was too highly specialized to suit the domestic condition; hence the generalized un-beautiful beast was chosen to be man's servant and companion. In the same way it looks as if we were taking to the daw in preference to the more beautiful bird because he is more like us, or understands us better, or adapts himself more readily to our way of life. I believe that about nine out of every ten interesting and amusing stories about charming pet birds I have heard in England during the last quarter of a century relate to the daw, and this, I think, goes to show that he is a prime favourite as a feathered pet, at all events in the southern and western counties. VI STORY OF A JACKDAW