Faculties of Vision iy Birds 



95 



fond of bright objects we have no means of deciding. In 

 accordance with this view, a writer on natural history 

 says : " A looking-glass is a matter of great wonde T to 

 magpies. We once saw one placed on the ground where 

 two were hopping about. One of them came up to it, 

 stared at it in apparent wondei, hopped off to the other, 

 and then both returned and spent at least ten minutes 

 in codding, chattering, and hopping about the glass." 



Colonel Montagu tells us he was ' ' assured by a gentle- 

 man of veracity that his butler, having missed a great 

 many silver spoons and other articles without being able 

 to detect the thief for some time, at last observed a tame 

 raven with one in his mouth and watched him to his 

 hiding-place where he found more than a dozen." 



A similar story is told by a lady of a raven kept a few 

 years ago at Newhaven, in Sussex — at an inn on the road 

 between Buxton and Ashbourne. This bird had been 

 taught to call the poultry when they fed, and could do it 

 very well too. One day the table had been set out for the 

 coach passengers ; the cloth was laid with the knives, and 

 forks, spoons, mats, and bread, and in that state was left 

 some time, the room door being shut but the window open. 

 The raven had watched the operation very quietly, and, 

 we may suppose, felt a strong ambition to do the like. 

 When the coach was about arriving, and the dinner carried 

 in, behold, the whole paraphernalia of the dinner-table 

 had vanished ! It was a moment of consternation — silver 

 spoons, knives, forks, all gone. But what was the 

 surprise and amusement to see, through the open window, 

 upon a heap of rubbish in the yard, the whole array 

 carefully set out, and the raven performing the honours 

 of the table to a numerous party of poultry which he had 

 summoned about him, and was very consequentially 

 regaling with bread. 



M. Antoine tells us that there is an annual mass, called 

 the Magpie Mass, said in the Church of St. John at 

 Greve, which arose from the following circumstance. A 

 magpie, indulging its propensity to carry off and conceal 

 glittering objects, took a fancy to make free with the 

 church plate, and in consequence thereof a maid-servant 



