134 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



variety of foods, including both plant and animal matter. A bird of its 

 size is able, probably, in the region it inhabits, to find food of this nature 

 in sufficient quantity most easily by foraging on the ground. The most 

 productive ground is in the open where there is low-growth vegetation. 

 A magpie's wings are short and rounded and so shaped that it cannot 

 fly rapidly or far. Therefore, if it is to escape from pursuit, it must 

 stay in places where it can move rapidly into thick clumps of brush. 

 These two circumstances, then, tend to restrict magpies to places where 

 there is open forage ground and where clumps or bushy trees and bushes 

 are scattered over the landscape. Further limitation requires trees and 

 bushes of sufficient strength to support the bulky nest. These suitable 

 nesting trees are oftenest found along the streams. 



A rather striking relation to climate exhibited by this bird has not 

 been clearly explained. On the map of the dry climates of the United 

 States published by Russell (1931) the region marked as Cold Type 

 Steppe Dry Climate is almost exactly the range of the black-billed 

 magpie. The boundaries coincide ever)-where within a few miles. In 

 this type of climate the mean January temperatures furnish the greatest 

 contrast with the cjimate of the region occupied by the yellow-billed 

 magpie. 



Magpie, the name for this bird now used almost universally among 

 English-speaking people, is a contraction of Alagot Pie, a Aliddle English 

 name for the bird. According to Swann (1913) the first part of the 

 name appears to have no reference to the bird's habit of picking maggots 

 from the backs of sheep (as some persons have supposed), but it is 

 "derived from the French Margot, a diminutive of Marguerite, but also 

 signifying a Magpie, perhaps from its noisy chattering, in which it is 

 popularly supposed to resemble a talkative woman." The second part 

 of the name is supposed to come through French from the Latin pica, 

 which refers to the black-and-white coloration of the bird. 



Throughout the range of the group the many allusions to magpies in 

 folklore and the superstitions concerning them demonstrate widespread 

 familiarity with the bird in early times. The same tendency is reflected 

 in the large number of vernacular names, more than 400, that have been 

 applied to the magpie. 



Because a long account of all the magpies, which I once assembled, 

 was published so recently (Linsdale, 1937) and only a little additional 

 infonnation has been available, this entire story has been mainly ex- 

 tracted from the earlier one. which may be consulted for more extensive 

 detail. 



Courtship. — The study of courtship in magpies is especially difficult 

 because their gregarious habit, their marked shyness, and aversion to 



