l48 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



familiar and voracious, penetrating into their tents, snatching the meat 

 even from their dishes, and frequently, when the hunters were engaged 

 in dressing their game, seizing the meat suspended within a foot or two 

 of their heads." They add further that "Mr. Nuttall, in his tour across 

 the continent, found these birds so familiar and greedy as to be easily 

 taken, as they approached the encampment for food, by the Indian boys, 

 who kept them prisoners. They soon became reconciled to their con- 

 finement, and were continually hopping around and tugging and strug- 

 gling for any offal thrown to them." 



Improvement of the habitat by the magpies, if it takes place, is usually 

 not noticed at all by people. However, if the magpies remove, or in- 

 terfere with, any article claimed by people, this is likely to be noticed 

 immediately and to be followed by some kind of retaliation. The result 

 often is the destruction of a certain part of the magpie population. But 

 the magpie is a hardy kind of animal, and unless the destruction is 

 organized and well planned the birds have a good chance to survive, 

 at least in small numbers. It is rare that human concentration on an 

 area within magpie range reaches a point where the continued presence 

 of the bird is hindered, unless direct killing is resorted to by the people. 



The hatred that many persons hold for the magpie has found expres- 

 sion in the carrying on of contests in an attempt to "exterminate" the 

 species. An item from a newspaper in British Columbia gives some 

 results of one of these contests as it was conducted in 1931 in the 

 Okanagan Lake region. Two teams, of six persons each, killed a total of 

 1,033 magpies in one season. 



In western States magpies in c.ertain localities have hindered cam- 

 paigns against predatory animals, by raids on the baited stations, to such 

 an extent that special efforts have been made to remove the birds before 

 spreading poison. Kalmbach (1927) reports that "during campaigns 

 against coyotes in the winter of 1921-22 along Butter Creek, in Umatilla 

 County, Oreg., it was conservatively estimated that 5,000 magpies were 

 killed. In Douglas County, Colo., magpies were practically exterminated 

 in the country covered by poison lines placed for coyotes in the winter 

 of 1922-23. In the winter of 1921-22 a coyote campaign planned on the 

 Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation, Nev., called for preliminary measures 

 against magpies. On the first day after placing the baits three grain 

 sacks full of dead magpies were picked up. An inspection of this reserva- 

 tion during the following winter showed not a dozen magpies, where 

 in the previous year there were probably more than a thousand. At 

 one poison station at Summit, Utah, 143 of these birds were accounted 

 for within a few days." 



The same writer concluded, concerning the magpie, that "over much 



