The Magpie 159 



Familx—CORMIK^.. 



The Magpie. 



Pica rus/ica, Scor. 



BEAUTIFUL beyond all our other Crows, the Magpie unhappil_y has so many 

 enemies among game-preservers, that its numbers in some parts of Great 

 Britain have sadly diminished. Its distribution is most clearly defined by 

 Howard Saunders : — " From the North Cape in Scandinavia southward, it is found, 

 more or less plentifully throughout Europe, except in the islands of Corsica and 

 Sardinia ; but it does not occur in Palestine, although found in Asia Minor. 

 Eastward — subject to a variation in the amount of white in the plumage, which 

 has led to the creation of several bad species — the Magpie is found across Asia 

 to India, China and Japan, and also in the northern portion of America from the 

 Pacific to Michigan." 



In England, Wales and Scotland, this species is still fairly common and 

 widely distributed. In Ireland it is not only abundant, but its numbers are in- 

 creasing. Perhaps the comparative scarcity of this species at the present time in 

 some of the southern counties may be due almost as much to the wholesale de- 

 struction of timber, which has of late years been carried on by land-owners, as to 

 the undoubted enmity which game-keepers show to it. In a wood near Newington, 

 on the Chatham and Dover line, I have often seen several pairs both of this bird 

 and the Jay simultaneously flying iip from their feeding- ground in a small-clearing; 

 but now that wood is converted into pasturage and hop-gardens : and the same 

 may be said of many a once grand hunting-ground for the Naturalist, for miles 

 and miles around that neighbourhood. Alas for Kent, once the garden of England! 

 it is rapidly becoming a mere dreary expanse of wire-fenced fields and hop-poles. 



The Magpie is chiefly glossy black, showing purple and green reflections ; 

 but the rump is whitish-grey ; the scapulars white, the inner webs of the primaries 

 with a white patch ; the tail with greenish-bronze and purple reflections, and with 

 a purplish-black subterminal band ; abdomen snow- white : bill and feet black, iris 

 dark brown. Female slightly smaller and duller than the male, and with a 

 slightly shorter and heavier bill. Young birds somewhat duller than adults. 



To see the full beauty of this grand bird on the wing, one must be behind 



