228 Habits of the Magpie. 



times, and has brought to her nest a kind of furniture wholly 

 unknown to her ancestors. 



The magpie lays from three to nine eggs ; but seven seems 

 to be the average number, varying in size, and shape, and 

 colour, as much as those of the carrion crow. [VI. 209.] 



The female magpie has so near a resemblance to the male, 

 that you can scarcely distinguish the one from the other. This 

 is the case with all birds, where the brilliant plumage obtains 

 before the first moulting. 



The sight of a magpie always- gives me pleasure; its long 

 tail, and its distinct markings of white and black, having a 

 beautiful effect as it darts through the air. You may know 

 this bird at a very great distance, either on the ground, or in 

 a tree, by the frequent and brisk movement of its tail ; always 

 up and down, never sideways. 



The magpie seems to have found out that it has at least 

 one friend left in our part of the country. Last year I had 

 thirty-four nests, all of which ushered their young into the 

 world at large ; making, on an average of five to the nest, in- 

 cluding the parent birds, 238 individuals ; an increase quite 

 sufficient, one would think, to supply all the wise men of the 

 county with any quantity of omens. The name of wise man, 

 in Yorkshire, is always given to one who professes to deal in 

 the black art. Even well-educated people of the nineteenth 

 century go to him, in order to recover things lost ; or to be 

 put on the right scent, if a cow, or horse, or pig, or relative, 

 be missing. 



Magpies are social, though not gregarious in the strictest 

 sense of the word. In places where they are beyond the 

 reach of molestation, you may see them in little parties of 

 fifteen or twenty together, flitting from tree to tree in noisy con- 

 versation. Sometimes they will rise to a great height in the 

 air, passing through it with a velocity which seems hitherto 

 to have escaped the notice of naturalists. 



Like all other birds in a wild state, magpies become voci- 

 ferous at the approach of night ; and he who loves to watch 

 the movements of animated nature may observe them, in small 

 detached companies, proceeding to their wonted roosting- 

 places in some wood of spruce, pine, or larch, which they seem 

 to prefer to any other. There they become valuable watch- 

 men for the night. Whoever enters the grove is sure to at- 

 tract their special notice ; and then their chattering is incessant. 

 Whenever I hear it during the night, or even during the day 

 (except towards nightfall), I know that there is mischief on 

 the stir. Three years ago, at eleven o'clock in broad day, 

 I was at the capture of one of the most expert and desperate 



