Chap. XIV. Unpaired Birds. 407 



different habits in different countries. For instance, I have 

 heard of only one instance, from Mr. Wedderburn, of a regular 

 assemblage of black game in Scotland, yet these assemblages 

 are so well known in Germany and Scandinavia that they have 

 received special names. 



Unpaired Birds. — From the facts now given, we may conclude 

 that the courtship of birds, belonging to widely different groups, 

 is often a prolonged, delicate, and troublesome affair. There is 

 even reason to suspect, improbable as this will at first appear, 

 that some males and females of the same species, inhabiting the 

 same district, do not always please each other, and consequently 

 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 conspic- 

 uous 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 succeed- 

 ing day ; but Mr. Thompson gives the case of one being replaced 

 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. 5 The first and most obvious 

 conjecture is that male magpies must be much more numerous 

 than females ; and that in the above cases, as well as in many 

 others which could be given, the males alone had been killed. 

 Tins apparently holds good in some instances, for the game- 

 keepers in Delamere Forest assured Mr. Fox that the magpies 

 and carrion-crows which they formerly killed in succession in 

 large numbers near their nests, were all males ; and they accounted 

 for this fact by the males being easily killed whilst bringing food 

 to the sitting females. Macgillivray, however, gives, on the 

 authority of an excellent observer, an instance of three magpies 

 successively killed on the same nest, which were all females; and 

 another case of six magpies successively killed whilst sitting on 

 the same eggs, which renders it probable that most of them were 

 females ; though, as I hear from Mr. Fox, the male will sit on the 

 eggs when the female is killed. 



Sir J. Lubbock's gamekeeper has repeatedly shot, but how 

 often he could not say, one of a pair of jays (Oarrulus glandarius), 



5 On magpies, Jenner, in 'Phil. p. 570. Thompson, in 'Annals a&i 

 Transact.' 1824, p. 21. Macgil- Mag. of Nat. Hist.' vol. viii. 1842, 

 livray, ' Hist. British Birds,' vol. l. p. 494. 



