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draggled wretches we had been accustomed to see; they are now lively, happy birds with a splendid gloss on their feathers and beaks as bright a yellow as the blackbird's. Finally, in April they left us, not going in a body, but flock by flock, day after day, until by the end of the month all were gone back to their homes in the north--all but the two or three to half a dozen pairs in each village. And these few that stay behind are new colonists in West Cornwall.
IV INCREASING BIRDS IN BRITAIN
ABOUT the daw, or Jackie, or Dorrie or Jackie-Dorrie, as he is variously and familiarly called, and his village habits, there will be more to say presently; just now my concern is with another matter--a veritable daw problem.
For the last twenty years or longer it has seemed to me that the daw is an increasing species in Britain; at all events I am quite sure that it is so in the southern half of England, particularly along the coast of Somerset, Devon, Dorset, and in Cornwall, more than in any other county. And why is it? He is certainly not a respectable bird, like the starling, for example--if we do not go to the cherry-grower for the starling's character. He is and always has been on the keeper's and farmer's black list, and scarcely a week passes but you will find him described in some gamekeeper's
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