Northern Observations of Inland Birds 269 



which is to stand up to the vicious, stabbing assaults 

 of such ruffians would have to be fit indeed. 



Anxious to aid the grouse I hurried up to the scene, 

 when both magpies flew off into a neighbouring tree, 

 though the grouse seemed afraid to rise and ran crouching 

 through the heather. Reaching the place I could see 

 nothing to account for the contest, but having no doubt 

 that the newly-hatched brood was the cause of it, and 

 fearing to search about lest I should step upon the chicks 

 as they lay hidden, I went back to the wood edge, and 

 there waited till the mother had time to get her charges 

 away. 



Magpies will lift practically anything that they think 

 they can swallow, and I remember watching a pair of 

 them hunting a bent pasture in the West Riding. Hither 

 and thither they ran, always about fifty yards apart, 

 and now and then one of them would be seen to strike 

 into the grass, dragging something out. It then got to 

 work with its bill and claws, evidently devouring food 

 of some kind. Lizards were very numerous on that 

 particular allotment, and I have no doubt whatever 

 that the magpies were catching these. 



When fishing on the Tweed, I used regularly one 

 summer to notice a pair of magpies besporting themselves 

 along a railway banking on the Innerleithen and Peebles 

 line. Every noon, as regularly as clockwork, they were 

 to be seen there, though they were so wary that it was 

 impossible to watch them closely. The banking faced 

 south, and being a dry, sunny place, snakes and beetles 

 were most abundant there. 



Some friends of mine living in the South of England 

 kept a tame magpie which had free run of the garden. 

 It was found necessary to keep the bird caged during 

 the spring, otherwise every song bird's nest on the 

 premises was rifled and torn to bits by Jock, but when 



