480 



THE MAGPIE. 



preening its feathers, as if butter could not melt in its mouth, 

 but at the foot of the tree the pike lay gasping, with its dorsal 

 fin torn, its sides skinned — signs of a deadly struggle. How the 

 magpie could haul a fish as heavy as itself out of the tub is 

 proof of its power and intelligence. Another gentleman had a 

 female of a different nature, for instead of killing chickens and 

 ducklings, it protected them with maternal care. On the least 

 sign of danger it flew to their rescue, and it drove cats or 

 dogs away with determined courage, which shows that birds are 

 trusting and kindly, or suspicious and wary, as they are used — 

 as some poor dogs and human beings are made mad by sheer 

 ill-usage. If the maggot-pie cannot get maggots and has to live 

 on eggs or young birds, who is to blame ? Yet the evil done is 

 counterbalanced by the good, for, as Shakespeare says, " There 

 is a soul of goodness in things evil." The destruction of owls 

 make the rats and mice become plagues, as the destruction of 

 rooks increase the pestilent wire worms and May bugs. Lord 

 Erskine, in his " Farmer's Vision," aptly says — 



" Th' astonished farmer toils in vain, 

 Each hour destroys his ripening grain ; 

 But Providence beholds the scene, 

 And other beings step between ; 

 Yet let not man presume to know 

 Their course, nor dare to strike the blow : 

 Blind as the mole he snares, shall be 

 Murmuring at the supreme decree ; 

 At random breaks that mighty chain, 

 JVo link of which is made in vain." 



The greatest breaker of the " mighty chain" of Nature is man 

 — in his presumptive ignorance destroying such creatures as 

 rooks, owls, magpies, and moles — creating the evils he wishes to 

 avert. What though the magpie sucks eggs and the rook eats 

 worms ? Hamlet logically says — " Your worm is your only 

 emperor for diet ; we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat 

 ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is 

 but variable service ; two dishes but to one table ; that's the end. 

 A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat 

 of the fish that hath fed of that king, so a king may go a 

 progress through the guts of a beggar." 



The magpie is a great mimic — even since the days of 

 Plutarch, for that old observant historian says — " A barber in 

 Rome had one of these thievish rogues which imitated every 

 noise it heard. "When some trumpets were sounded over the 

 shop it was mute and pensive for a day or two, and it was 



