CiiAP. XIV. UNPAIRED BIKDS. 103 



to be paired for the season. In any district in which 

 a species does not exist in hirge numbers, great assem- 

 blages cannot, of course, be held, and the same species 

 may have different habits in different countries. For 

 instance, I have never met with anv account of res^ular 

 assemblages of bhick game in Scotland, yet these as- 

 semblages are so well known in Germany and Scan- 

 dinavia that tliey have special names. 



Unpaired Birds. — From the facts now given, we 

 may conclude that with birds belonging to widely-dif- 

 ferent groups their courtship is often a prolonged, deli- 

 cate, and troublesome affair. There is even reason to 

 suspect, improbable as this wdll at first appear, that 

 some males and females of the same species, inhabiting 

 the same district, do not always please each other and 

 in consequence do not pair. Many accounts have been 

 published of either the male or female of a pair having 

 been shot, and quickly replaced by another. This has 

 been observed more frequently with the magpie than 

 with any other bird, owing perhaps to its conspicuous 

 appearance and nest. The illustrious Jenner states 

 that in Wiltshire one of a pair was daily shot no less 

 than seven times successively, "but all to no purpose, 

 *' for the remaining magpie soon found another mate ; " 

 and the last pair reared their young. A new partner 

 is generally found on the succeeding day ; but My. 

 Thompson gives the case of one being re})laced on the 

 evening of the same day. Even after the eggs are 

 hatched, if one of the old birds is destroyed a mate 

 will often be found ; this occurred after an interval 

 of two days, in a case recently observed by one of 

 Sir J. Lubbock's keepers.^ The first and most obvious 



5 



On magpies, Jenner, in ' Phil, Transact.' 1824, p. 21. Macgil- 

 livray, ' Hist. British Birds,' voL i. p. 570. Thompson, in ' Annals and 

 Mag. of Nat. Hist.' vol. viii. 1842, p. 494. 



