384 LAND BIRDS 
ranking with burrowing owls and prairie dogs. From 
the time one first catches a glimpse of these Magpies until 
one’s face is set homeward, they are a fascinating study. 
Much handsomer and more intelligent than crows, they 
are comparatively less known. The average Westerner 
regards them as a nuisance, and [ suspect he is not far 
wrong in this estimate, but, like their relatives the jays, 
they yet have something to commend them. 
About Lake Tahoe the Black-billed Magpies abound ; 
they build their nests in the young oaks as close to the 
dooryards as they are allowed. One pair that I watched 
had nested for six years in the same tree ten feet from a 
dwelling, and were almost as tame as chickens. They 
were tolerated on the ground that small rodents will not 
come where they are. While this theory is not entirely 
borne out by the facts, there is a grain of truth in it, for 
a magpie will watch the burrow of a ground squirrel 
like a terrier at a rat hole and pounce as swiftly on his 
victim. His curiosity knows no bounds, and any un- 
usual appearance of the neighborhood he must investi- 
gate and talk over. An experiment of hanging bits of 
black, white, red, and yellow cloth on the bushes near 
the abode of magpies resulted in a curious selection of 
the yellow and white first and an apparent terror of the 
red. Repeated experiments seemed to prove that this 
color was repulsive to the birds, and for a long time I 
could not guess why, knowing that raw red meat was 
a favorite dainty. Finally, noticing how excited both 
birds became at the approach of some little Indian girls 
who lived in the fishing village and who were dressed in 
