MAGPIE. 565 



dividual, shot near Bowhill in Selkirkshire, one of the seats ot* 

 the Duke of Buccleuch. The bill, feet, and claws were red- 

 dish-brown ; the head, neck, fore part of the breast, the upper 

 tail-coverts, the abdomen, and the legs, dull reddish-brown, 

 the back yellowish-brown, with a w^hite band across ; the sca- 

 pulars, and middle and posterior part of the thorax, white ; 

 the quills nearly white, the wing-coverts brown ; the tail 

 with the outer webs white, the inner webs and lower surface 

 brown. Length l7i inches ; wing from flexure 1^^ ; bill 

 lj\ tarsus If. 



Habits. — The Magpie is generally distributed in Britain, 

 being more or less common in all the cultivated and wooded 

 districts of England and Scotland, both in the interior and 

 along the coast, although nowhere numerous, on account of 

 the hostility of gamekeepers, gardeners, and sportsmen of all 

 degrees. In the Outer Hebrides, the Shetland and Orkney 

 Islands, it is never seen, and in large tracts of the central 

 regions of Scotland is rarely if ever met with, because its habits 

 are such as to induce it to remain at no great distance from 

 human habitations. 



There, on the old ash that overshadows the farm-yard, you 

 may see a pair, one perched on the topmost twig, the other 

 hopping among the branches, uttering an incessant clatter of 

 short hard notes, scarcely resembling any thing else in nature, 

 but withal not unpleasant, at least to the lover of birds. How 

 gracefully she of the top twig swings in the breeze ! Off she 

 starts, and directing her flight towards the fir wood opposite, 

 proceeds with a steady, moderately rapid, but rather heavy 

 flight, performed by quick beats of her apparently short wings, 

 intermitted for a moment at intervals. Birds with long gradu- 

 ated tails generally fly heavily, or at least have the appearance 

 of doing so: the Pheasant, for example, and the Magpie. 

 Even the Cuckoo, in its ordinary flight, seems to lack speed, 

 although on occasion it shoots along with the rapidity of a 

 Sparrow Hawk. Chattering by the way, she seems to call her 

 mate after her ; but he, intent on something which he has spied 

 below, hops downwards from twig to branch, and descends to 



