The caw of the Daw is more high and shrill than that of most Crows; it is found in nearly all parts of Great Britain, and is common in Holland, Germany, France, Italy, and most countries of Europe. One remarkable circumstance connected with its nidification is the immense quantity of material which it collects; sometimes it builds in chimneys, and completely stops them up with the huge pile of sticks, which it there deposits. It is said that the fire which, some years since partly consumed the cathedral of York, was much fed and assisted by the Jackdaws' nests on the turrets. In Cambridge, where the Daws are numerous, building in the colleges and church towers, no less than eighteen dozen of deal laths, about nine inches long and one broad, which had been purloined from the botanic gardens, where they were put into the ground as labels for the plants, were found in the shaft of one chimney in which the birds had built. Many anecdotes are related of the ingenuity they manifest on getting their building materials into the desired position; often through narrow loopholes, and up winding staircases, they manage to convey long sticks and pieces of wood in a manner truly surprising; and the way in which they pile up the light fabric upon joists and cross-beams, and window-sills, and make it all firm and stable, is no less so. Sometimes the Daws choose less lofty situations for their nests; generally, as Bishop Mant tells us, they make "In spire or looped and windowed tower Of hallowed fane their nestling bower. In caverned cliff beside the sea, Or hollow of the woodland tree;--" But occasionally they descend, when nature "Prompts them in the waste to roam And seek a subterranean home, The burrowing rabbit's haunt, and there Of sticks and matted wool prepare Their dwelling, and produce their race, In that unlikely dwelling-place." MAGPIE. PIET. PIANET. MAG. MADGE. FIGURE 9.