49 
MAGPIE. 
COMMON MAGPIE. PIANET. MADGE. 
Pica caudata, FLEMING. SELBY. GOULD. 
Corvus Pica, PENNANT. Monracu. 
Pica—A Pie—A Magpie. Cuudata—Tailed, (a factitious word.) 
Ir I remember aright, in the great French Revolution, the 
zeal of the people for ‘liberté’ was so great, that they opened 
the doors of all the cages, and let the birds fly out. I should 
have enjoyed the sight; though some of the captives perhaps 
preferred remaining where they were, and did not value the 
unwonted freedom which they had never known the possession 
of, even as the poor prisoner who returned to the dungeon, 
with whose walls he had become familiar. To him the world 
was become the prison, the spider a more agreeable companion 
than his fellow-man: certainly he had found the one more 
friendly than the other. Nothing is to me more miserable 
than to see a bird in a cage, and, with reference to the species 
before us, who can tell what a Magpie is, either in character 
or in beauty, from only seeing him thus contined? He is, 
when himself, a brilliant—a splendid bird; gay alike in nature 
and in plumage. 
The Magpie is met with in Europe, Asia, Africa, and 
America, being found in Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, 
Lapland, Norway, and Greece, Asia Minor, Russia, and Si 
beria; India, China, and Japan, and the United States. 
It is common in all wooded parts of the three kingdoms 
of England, Ireland, and Scotland, but is unknown, except 
as a straggler, in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, or the Shetland 
Islands. Shy and wary, it keeps at a secure distance from 
VOL. IL B 
