THE MAGPIE 59 



and at intervals introduces the bleating of a lamb, mewing of a 

 cat, the note of a Kite or Buzzard, hooting of an Owl, or even neigh- 

 ing of a horse. These imitations are so exact, even in a natural 

 wild state, that we have frequently been deceived.' The Jay 

 generally builds its nest in a wood, either in the top of a low tree, 

 or against the trunk of a lofty one, employing as material small 

 sticks, roots, and dry grass, and lays five eggs. There seems to 

 be a difference of opinion as to the sociability of the family party 

 after the young are fledged, some writers stating that they separate 

 b}/ mutual consent, and that each shifts for itself ; others, that the 

 young brood remains with the old birds all the winter. For my own 

 part, I scarcely recollect ever having seen a solitary Jay, or to have 

 heard a note which was not immediately responded to by another 

 bird of the same species, the inference from which is that, though 

 not gregarious, they are at least social. 



When domesticated, the Jay displays considerable intelligence ; 

 it is capable of attachment, and learns to distinguish the hand and 

 voice of its benefactor. 



THE MAGPIE 



PICA RUSTICA 



Head, throat, neck, and back velvet-black ; scapulars and under plumage 

 white ; tail much graduated and, as well as the wings, black, with lus- 

 trous blue and bronze reflections ; beak, iris, and feet black. Length 

 eighteen inches ; breadth twenty-tliree inches. Eggs pale dirty green, 

 spotted all over with ash-grey and olive-brown. 



The Magpie, like the Crow, labours under the disadvantage of an 

 ill name, and in consequence incurs no small amount of persecution. 

 Owing to the disproportionate length of its tail and shortness of 

 its wings its flight is somewhat heavy, so that if it were not cunning 

 and wary to a remarkable degree, it would probably well-nigh dis- 

 appear from the catalogue of British Birds. Yet though it is 

 spared by none except avowed preservers of all birds (like Water- 

 ton, who protects it ' on account of its having nobody to stand 

 up for it '), it continues to be a bird of general occurrence, and 

 there seems indeed to be but little diminution of its numbers. Its 

 nest is usually constructed among the upper branches of a lofty 

 tree, either in a hedge-row or deep in a wood ; or if it has fixed its 

 abode in an unwooded district, it selects the thickest thorn-bush 

 in the neighbourhood and there erects its castle. This is com- 

 posed of an outwork of thorns and briers supporting a mass of 

 twigs and mud, which is succeeded by a layer of fibrous roots. 

 The whole is not only fenced round but arched over with thorny 

 sticks, an aperture being left, on one side only, large enough to 

 admit the bird. In this stronghold are deposited generally six 



