alain 
I gS eT I TT EE aT 
\ 
MAGPIE. 565 
: 
to take wing again as you approach. Upon alighting it elevates its tail, 
which is often spread out like a fan and repeatedly wafted gently up and 
down. Even when no danger threatens, the Magpie is a restless bird, inces- 
santly on the move—now down upon the ground or in the lower bushes, 
then up in the topmost branches, every movement usually accompanied by 
chattering cries. 
Magpies often breed year after year in the same place. My earliest 
recollections of bird-nesting are associated with a pair of Magpies which 
bred every year in my father’s garden. He was very fond of them; and 
in order to secure the young from being stolen by the children of the 
woolcombers in the neighbouring village, he used to send the under groom 
up the tree and have the young Magpies hung up in a cage in an old 
oak tree, where their parents regularly fed them—the right of property in 
birds in a cage being respected by.these embryo poachers, who naturally 
looked upon trespass in pursuit of Magpies or game as an innocent crime. 
After many years’ observation my father came to the conclusion that these 
Magpies were weather-wise, and that if they built their nest in a thick 
sycamore we might confidently calculate upon a stormy spring, whilst the 
position of the nest near the slender top of a lofty poplar was‘a sure indi- 
cation of fine weather. 
, Although in the British Islands the Magpie is found almost everywhere, 
its breeding-grounds are to a certain extent restricted.- To almost every 
variety of scenery Magpies lend a charm; but it is only in the wooded 
districts that their nests may be found in any great numbers. Sometimes, 
however, the bird will rear its young in hedges or in trees standing alone ; 
or on the wide-stretching lonely moor its nest may not unfrequently be. 
observed in the stunted bushes that, in spite of wind and storm, manage 
to take root in the scanty soil. But these places are exceptional. Almost 
every forest tree is used by this bird for a nesting-place. The towering 
oaks and elms in the wooded solitudes—the pines, the firs, and the alders, 
either in plantations or standing alone—the graceful silver birches, the 
mountain-ash, or the more lowly hawthorn, holly, and crab-tree all in 
turn are selected to hold its large and bulky nest. More rarely it will 
build in tangled thickets; and in Norwegian Lapland, where the bird is 
protected, I have seen its nest under the eaves of houses, in heaps of 
brushwood, and in low bushes. 
The Magpie is an early breeder, and begins to build towards the latter 
end of March or early in April. It probably pairs for life. The nest 1s 
usually placed on one of the topmost branches, and seldom near the trunk, 
unless in its most slender part. Here, in a suitable fork, the sticks are 
arranged which form the outside of the nest. These sticks are cemented 
with mud and clay, which also forms the first lining to the stick-built 
nest. More sticks are now added, until the nest itself is covered with a 
