MAGPIE. 571 



cunning old fellow had seduced some young wife from her hus- 

 band, or whether he had picked up a widow which some mali- 

 cious sportsman had deprived of her partner, or whether he 

 had fallen in with some fair damsel who during the pairing 

 season had been disappointed of a lover, or finally, whether he 

 had paid his devoirs to some discontented old maid who had 

 formerly refused to enter into the state of matrimony, but re- 

 pented of her conduct, I know not ; but I can affirm that 

 he never remained a widower longer than two or three days. 

 In confirmation of this curious fact, Mr. John Mellish, game- 

 keeper to Sir William Baillie, Bart, of Polkemmet, told me 

 that he saw six successive Magpies, which sat upon the same 

 eggs, shot from a nest behind the old parish church of JMid- 

 calder. 



" Their attachment to the same place is sometimes truly 

 astonishing. A few years ago, about the beginning of ^lay, I 

 shot off the foot of a female ^lagpie, as she was coming out of 

 her nest. She forsook it, but continued to hop up and down 

 in the neighbourhood the best way she could in pursuit of her 

 food. About the middle of the following summer, having killed 

 a Magpie on the same nest, as she was feeding a brood of w^ell- 

 fledged young, I was astonished to find that I had shot my 

 lame acquaintance. 



" To all kinds of eggs they are destructive. Even the nest 

 of the smallest bird does not escape their minute observation. 

 To their rapacious appetite a great many partridges and phea- 

 sants, and several other birds, fall an easy prey. Day after 

 day, 1 have observed them in pursuit of the same covey ; and 

 they never appeared to be satisfied until the poor birds were 

 extirpated. So impudent were they, that early in the morn- 

 ing, and within a few yards of my house, I have seen them 

 watching most eagerly the ducklings and chickens, and should 

 any of them wander from their mother, they were sure to 

 pounce upon them, and carry them off. Mr. Wark, farmer at 

 Hardhill, told me that his brother, upon his property of Old 

 Hall, in the parish of Dunlop, shot off the leg of a JNIagpie, as 

 she was carrying off a chicken from his house. She was not 

 seen during the winter and spring, but appeared again in sum- 



