Jackdaw, a bird of the crow family. It is somewhat smaller than the crow and rook. It has black legs, a black body, and a dark gray neck. It abounds in the Mediterranean countries and northward. In a wild country it builds its nests in crevices of cliffs and inaccessible places. In England it is a familiar bird about ruins and rambling houses. It often builds in chimneys which at times it half fills with sticks before it gets a basis for a nest. It is stated that a pair of jackdaws working seventeen days once built a pile of sticks ten feet high in the stairway of a school building at Eton. The jackdaw is tamed easily. It makes a mischievous, noisy, thievish, imitative, interesting pet. See RAVEN; CROW; ROOK; MAGPIE.