Jackdaws, like rooks, are said to be excellent weather-prophets. If they fly back to their roost in the forenoon, or early in the afternoon, a storm may be expected that evening, or early in the morning.
The Rev. J. G. Wood’s Anecdote.
The anecdotes of tame jackdaws are numerous. The Rev. J. G. Wood speaks of one which had learnt the art of kindling lucifer matches, and thus became a very dangerous inmate, busying himself in this way when the family was in bed, though, fortunately, he seems to have done nothing worse than light the kitchen fire which had been laid ready for kindling over night. Clever as he was, however, he could not learn to distinguish the proper ignitable end of the match, and so rubbed on till he happened to get it right. He frightened himself terribly at first by the explosion and the sulphur fumes, and burned himself into the bargain. But I do not find that, like the burnt child, he afterwards feared the fire and so discontinued the dangerous trick.
The jackdaw is easily domesticated, and makes himself very happy in captivity, learns to articulate words and sentences, and is most amusing by his mimicry and comic humour.
CHAPTER XV.
THE SPOTTED FLY-CATCHER.
This pretty little bird is also called the Beam or Pillar-Bird from the position which it chooses for its nest. Building mostly in gardens, it selects the projecting stone of a wall, the end of a beam or piece of wood, under a low roof, or by a door or gateway, the nest being, however, generally screened, and often made a perfect little bit of picturesque beauty, by the leaves of some lovely creeping rose, woodbine, or passionflower, which grows there.
This last summer, one of these familiar little birds, which, though always seeming as if in a flutter of terror, must be fond of human society, built in a rustic verandah, overrun with Virginian creeper, at the back of our house.
