PASSE RES. ( 202 ) CORVIDAi. 



THE MAGPIE. 



I 



PIE, PIET, PYET, PYOT, PYE, PIANET, MADGE, MAG. 



Pica rustica. 

 ^^e ^let, %{)t p^ct, 'Elje i^pon 



Tke Pyet with hlr pairiie cot, 



Fenyeis to sing the Nichtingalis tiot ; 

 Bat scho can nevir the corchet cleif,^ 



For harshnes of hir carlich'^ throt. 



W. Dunbar, about 1490. 



During the first quarter of this century, and until game 

 began to be generally preserved, this interesting bird was 

 plentiful in Berwickshire, but in many districts of the 

 county it is now seldom seen, having been almost extirpated 

 by gamekeepers on account of its partiality for the eggs 

 and young of Pheasants and Partridges. Mr. Wilson, late of 

 Edington Mains, says that in his boyhood, between 1810 

 and 1820, Piets were always to be seen in considerable num- 

 bers in the neighbourhood of that farm ; and this continued 

 until about 1840, when, along with Hooded Crows, pole- 

 cats, and other enemies to game, they were nearly exter- 

 minated. According to Mr. Duns, Duns, they were numerous 

 about Broomhouse in 1828, and he relates that when he was 

 working there at that time as an apprentice mason, at the 

 erection of the stone pillar which stands on the edge of the 



1 " Divide a crotchet," a term of music. — Sibbald, Chron. Scot. Poet. i. p. 319. 

 ' Coarse, vulgar. 



