THE MAGPIE CORVUS PICA. 13 



THE MAGPIE — (CORVUS PICA.) 

 AN APPEAL ON HIS BEHALF. 



A Naturalist Magazine can fairly be appealed to on behalf of one of 

 the most lively and picturesque birds of our woods, the Magpie — -which 

 bids fair to become as extinct as the Dodo. Of late, amongst other 

 mediaeval revivals, that of falconry has been making progress, and, in a 

 recent number of the Field, the Secretary gives his butcher's bill for 1879, 

 which includes sixty-seven Magpies. To this he adds the result of the 

 Club's flying visit to Ireland, where forty-eight more Magpies were killed 

 by the Club's falcons. Game preservers denounce Magpies as destroyers 

 of game, but this occurs chiefly in the two months during incubation, 

 when Magpie masculine has to bring home dainty food, and plenty of it, 

 to his mate. This is an insufficient reason for Maggie's destruction by 

 the Falcon Club members, for they include forty-one Partridges and three 

 Pheasants in their game hst, as well as two Peewits. Who is there, 

 except the game preserver, who does not rejoice to see the piebald wing 

 of the Magpie flash across the glade, or is not delighted to witness the gay 

 blue and steel colours of his tail feathers, which Warburton, no mean 

 judge, declared to be equal to those of tropical birds ! No other bird 

 struts about with the same jerky up-and-down motion of the tail, as he 

 digs over and under the fallen leaves for worms and larvas, which he 

 devours greedily, to the great benefit of the farmer. Earwigs and cock- 

 roaches are pecked up in great numbers by my specimen, a fine cock bird 

 about twelve months old, who is allowed to roam about my out-premises, 

 and is thus free to develop the vices attributed to him by unjust and 

 prejudiced maligners. Maggie is said to be a thief, and the opera of 

 "La Gazza Ladra," or the thieving Magpie, may be appealed to 

 in substantiation of the charge. But surely blame should be laid on 

 the human accusers and the blind justice, which too hastily assumed 

 the pretty waiting maid's guilt I Maggie had seen a ring glitter- 

 ing in the sunshine, mistaking it for a glow-worm, he took it to 

 his nest, and found it indigestible eating, no doubt. My bird 

 has not developed any vice save a little unnecessary violence 

 to the sparrows, who approach too closely to the secret hiding 

 places where superfluous cheese-rinds and small bones are secreted for 

 a time of need ; and then he pounces on them like a British Brigadier- 

 General, and punishes them with maiming or death. But, on the other 

 hand, Maggie acts the good Samaritan to a lame, waddly, old duck, who 

 i s a privileged pensioner iu the yard. Maggie will instantly attack any 

 y oungster disturbing the old quack, and brings her dainty morsels — a fat 

 lob-worm, or a cabbage leaf, standing by her, and twinkling his 

 roguish eyes while the duck tastes, and either rejects or swallows his 

 present. Maggie's chatter of a morning, after his bath, when he sits on 

 a hurdle and dries himself, and then favours us with his views on things 

 in general, is to me a most enjoyable sound, and a great relief to the 

 cock-crowing and quacking accompaniments of a poultry yard. Shut 



