[Illustration]
Corvus Monedula, LINNÆUS; Le Chocas, BUFFON; Die Dohle,
BECHSTEIN.
This bird is naturally half tame, and if reared from the nest it will
voluntarily remain in the yard with the poultry. It makes its nest in
old buildings, houses, castles, towers, and churches: its eggs are
green, spotted with dark brown and black. It is not so much to teach it
to speak that people like to rear young jack-daws, but to see it go and
return at call. Even old ones that are taken in autumn may be accustomed
to this, cutting the wings at first, and again in the spring, so that as
they grow again the bird learns by degrees to come to a certain call.
During winter it will always come into the yard. The size of the
jack-daw is that of the pigeon, thirteen or fourteen inches in length.
The back of the head is light grey, the rest of the body black. When in
winter it eats wild garlic, in the fields it smells very strongly of it,
and does not lose the scent till it has been a week in the house.