CONSPICUOUSLY BLACK AND WHITE 385 
red calico gowns, I was forced to conclude that in some 
way the wise old birds associated that color with perse- 
cution by the children. It seems that the latter had 
played the old cross-string trick with red flannel, which 
had been promptly seized again and again by the birds, 
greatly to the delight of the tricksters, to whom the 
temptation to snare by this means became too great to 
be resisted. The feathered playmates learned to shun 
both the color and the children. 
The nest in the oak tree was very bulky, and bore 
evidence of having been used for several broods. On or 
in a platform of sticks was a bowl of mud, lined with 
cattle hair and roofed with a dome-shaped mass of sticks. 
On opposite sides were entrance and exit, and through 
the former the tail of the brooding bird usually extended 
when she was on the nest. For eighteen days her beady 
black eyes could be seen at the exit, for scarcely ever 
was she absent, except when she went down to bathe, 
which was always once and sometimes twice a day. 
The male fed her devotedly on a great variety of dainties, 
—crayfish, dead minnows, young squirrels, small snakes 
or lizards, big black crickets, and, alas! eggs and young 
of swallows. The latter were nesting in numbers in 
hollow piles of an abandoned pier near by, and wher- 
ever the opening was large enough the Magpie helped 
himself. Young chickens were also his victims. 
On the day the young Magpies emerged from their 
shells, the mother joined her mate in stealthy journeys 
to and from the nest. Silently they slipped through the 
trees, but at the doorway of their home never failed to 
25 
