Country Life
By IAN NIALL
I DON'T think anyone has troubled to produce a collective noun for jackdaws or, if they have, it has ever become widely known. Sometimes it seems to me that an apt noun for them might be a contempla- tion, or a brooding, of jackdaws, that being one of their favourite deportments when it is damp and cold, or before the sun sinks and the sky darkens. There was a very solemn contemplation of daws this morn- ing. The wastes of the Atlantic seemed to be reflected in the clouds that flowed over our heads, and the daws were silent and almost motionless until something happened that made me strike out my collective word for them. A contemplation of jackdaws is all very well, but there is nothing like an outrage of daws when they hang cawing, protesting at the fate of a fallen brother. Such excitement fills the air with jack- daws that congregate from all quarters. In this case a poor fellow had flown into a telephone wire and lay collapsed with a broken wing while a cat stalked to study the chances of murder. Yes, an outrage of jackdaws is a much more graphic description. It fits so well, and the outrage is real and clamorous, like the impact of fresh scandal on the village.
Previous page
