THE PERCHING BIRDS. 185 



Unfortunately, it is also an abandoned poacher, and be- 

 sides its fondness for young birds and eggs, it delights 

 in a meal of carrion, knowing well when the 

 ^^^* deer is getting near the end of its wind. It 

 has also been observed to feed on a dead donkey, and the 

 observer of this spectacle, no other than the late Lord 

 Lilford, was doubly privileged, for it has been said that 

 few men have ever seen a dead donkey. The voice of 

 our magpie is, except for an occasional but very brief 

 improvement during the courting weeks, the reverse of 

 pleasing ; but in Australia the so-called magpie, an even 

 greater cage -favourite than the genuine bird at home, 

 has a beautiful voice. The long tail of the magpie is 

 much in evidence, especially when the bird is on the wing, 

 its flight being laboured. The magpie, though all but 

 exterminated by its enemy the keeper in some parts of 

 these islands, is, in those districts at any rate where game- 

 preserving is not the one end and aim of life, extending 

 its range. This is particularly noticeable in Ireland. 

 Although, as already mentioned, a robber in the game- 

 j)reserve, it is on the whole more correct, as well as 

 certainly more charitable, to regard worms, slugs, and 

 snails as its staple food. The nest, 23laced according to 

 circumstances in high trees, in bushes, or on the ground, 

 is of sticks and clay lined with grass. Eggs^ 6, i^ inch; 

 pale green, speckled with brown. 



Like the magpie, the beautiful Jay with the blue- 

 barred wings and black-and-white crest, black moustaches 

 and pale -brown legs, has been very sternly 

 ^^' dealt with by the gamekeeper ; and it would 

 be mere folly to deny that those whose interest or duty it is 

 to preserve have few worse enemies. Though energetically 

 kept under so far as actual numbers go, it seems to be 

 spread over a much larger range in Scotland^ than was the 



^ Sir H. Maxwell informs me tliat lie has reintroduced it in the 

 south-west. 



