484 THE MAGPIE. 



" A pair built for years within 40 yards of his stable, yet so shy 

 was the male that he could never get a shot at him ; but in a 

 short time he shot three females while hatching the same eggs, 

 as he would not desert the nest. He was struck with the 

 rapidity he got another female. Sir William Baillie of 

 Polkemmet saw six successive females (which sat upon the same 

 eggs) shot from a nest behind the church of Mid-Calder." The 

 more shame for man, the head of creation, to carry on such 

 " murderous operations" near the church ! Mr Weir says 

 " their attachment to the same place is astonishing. In May he 

 shot off the foot of a female as she was coming out of the nest. 

 She forsook the nest, but hopped about the neighbourhood as 

 best she could. Next year he shot a female coming out of the 

 same nest, and was surprised to find he had shot his lame 

 acquaintance while feeding her nearly ripe young ones." 

 Certainly not to his credit, for it was he, not she, that was 

 engaged in " murderous operations" 



Though generally found in wooded districts, it is rare in the 

 barren parts of Britain, as it likes to be near man. A writer on 

 the North of Scotland saw magpies hopping round a gooseberry 

 bush. The owners of the house told him, " as there were no 

 trees near, they had for several years built in that bush, which 

 (including the nest) was barricaded all round with briars and 

 thorns, so roughly and strongly entwined with the bushes that, 

 though the inside was soft and warm, a man could not get at 

 their young without a hedge knife, the barrier being a foot 

 thick. He said that frogs, mice, worms, or anything living, 

 were plentifully brought to their young. One day one of the 

 old birds attacked a large rat. Not being able to kill it, one of 

 the young ones came out of the nest and helped, but it was not 

 till the other old one came with a mouse and lent its aid that 

 the rat was killed" — proof that the maligned magpie was doing 

 its best to keep down rats and mice. The female was the most 

 active. One day she seized a chicken, and flew to the house- 

 top with it. But the hen flew after, and brought it safely down 

 in her bill. As a curious mark of instinct, when carried off, the 

 chicken cried loudly for help, but was quiet (as if it felt no pain) 

 when its mother carried it down. They reared their young for 

 years in the same nest, fortifying the bush afresh each spring 

 with prickly sticks, which they hauled in together when too 

 large for one. A pair for six years used the same nest till it 

 grew so large that it was blown down. But though they cling 

 to the old nest, they often partly build others before deciding 



