PIE 
NI 
NO 
to 
betoken, for some of these versions contradict one another in details, 
though all agree in this that the sight of a single Pie unquestionably 
forebodes sorrow. 
The Pie belongs to the Corvide (Crow), and is the Corvus pica 
of Linneus, the Pica caudata, P. melanoleuca or P. rustica of modern 
ornithologists, who have recognized it as forming a distinct genus, 
but the number of species thereto belonging has been a fruitful 
source of discussion. Examples from the south of Spain differ 
slightly from those inhabiting the rest of Europe, and in some points 
more resemble the P. mauritanica of north-western Africa; but that 
species has a patch of bare skin of a fine blue colour behind the 
eye, and much shorter wings. No fewer than five species have 
been discriminated from various parts of Asia, extending to Japan ; 
but only one of them, the P. leucoptera of Turkestan and Tibet, has 
of late been admitted as valid. In the west of North America, from 
Alaska to New Mexico, as well as in some of its islands, a Pie is 
found which extends to the upper valleys of the Missouri and the 
Yellowstone, even ¢ appearing so far to the eastward as Cumberland 
House, 1 mn the Province of Winnipeg, and in the State of Michigan, 
and was long thought entitled to specific distinction as P. hudsonia ; 
but its claim thereto is now disallowed by most American orni- 
thologists, and it can hardly be deemed even a geographical variety 
of the Old-World form. In California, however, there is a perma- 
nent race if not a good species, P. nuttalli, easily distinguishable 
by its yellow bill and the bare yellow skin round its eyes; and 
it is a curious fact that on two occasions in the year 1867 a bird 
apparently similar was observed in Great Britain (Zoologist, ser. 
2, pp. 706, 1016). 
More or less allied to the genus Pica are some forms that can 
hardly be separated from 
JAYS, as for instance the 
species of Cissa, before men- 
tioned (page 470), concerning 
the affinity of which opinions 
have differed much, but Mr. 
Oates (Fauna Br. Ind. Birds, 
1. p. 28), declares in favour 
of its Pie-like position. On the other hand Dendrocitta with several 
kindred genera, all belonging to the Indian Region, are with less 
doubt referred to the neighbourhood of Pica, as also is Cyanopica,? 
Cissa. (After Swainson.) 
1 Dr. Diederich (Ornis, 1889, pp. 280-332, tab. iv.) has treated at length and 
illustrated by a map the geographical distribution of the genus Pica. 
* Dr. Sharpe (Cat. B. Br. Mus. iii. p. 67), calls this genus Cyanopolius, citing 
as his authority a passage wherein that name does not occur. Bonaparte seems 
to have used it only in manuscript (see his Consp. Av. i. p. ZS ; and Waterhouse, 
Index Generum Avium, p. 59, note). 
