CROWS 213 



numbers may be seen, clay by day, for months, 

 without depressing resuhs following on the one 

 hand, or exceptional exhilaration on the other, the 

 wiseacres still point to any isolated coincidence as 

 a conclusive proof of the truth of the adage. 



The distribution of the Magpie in Great Britain 

 is most erratic; in some districts it is extremely rare, 

 and in others a distinctly abundant species. In 

 Ireland, at one time, it seems to have been entirely 

 unknown, a fact upon which certain ancient wTiters 

 appear to have congratulated themselves. " Ire- 

 land hath neither chattering Pye nor vndermining 

 Moule," wrote one Moryson, in 1617; and in the 

 " Tracts " published by the Irish Archccological 

 Society in 1841, it is stated, " There is here neither 

 mol, pye nor carren crow." Now the Magpie is 

 an abundant bird in Ireland. 



A century ago it appears to have been plentiful 

 throughout all parts of England, and ^Montagu 

 states " that thouoii shv it rarely removes far from 

 the habitation of man." Writing eighty years 

 later, the editor of Yarrell points out that this was 

 no doubt true of the bird at that period, but " a Pie 

 near a human dwelling, so far as England is con- 

 cerned, is now-a-days hardly to be seen from one 

 year's end to another's." This statement, again, 

 does not hold good at the present time, for in the 

 suburbs of certain densely-populated towns — Leeds 

 in particular^ — -Magpies have increased amazingly in 

 numbers, making their nests in the shrubberies and 

 gardens, and constantly appearing upon the lawns 

 and about the buildings. 



The fact, however, that these birds rapidly 



