THE BOOK OF MIGRATORY BIRDS 87 



between Buxton and Ashbourne. This bird had been 

 taught to call the poultry when they fed, and could do it 

 very well too. One day the table had been set out for the 

 coach passengers ; the cloth was laid with the knives, and 

 forks, spoons, mats, and bread, and in that state was left 

 some time, the room door being shut but the window open. 

 The raven had watched the operation very quietly, and, 

 we may suppose, felt a strong ambition to do the like. 

 When the coach was about arriving, and the dinner carried 

 in, behold, the whole paraphernalia of the dinner-table 

 had vanished ! It was a moment of consternation silver 

 spoons, knives, forks, all gone. But what was the surprise 

 and amusement to see, through the open window, upon a 

 heap of rubbish in the yard, the whole array carefully set 

 out, and the raven performing the honours of the table to 

 a numerous party of poultry which he had summoned 

 about him, and was very consequentially regaling with 

 bread. 



M. Anitoine tells us that there is an annual mass, called 

 the Magpie Mass, said in the Church of St. John at 

 Greve, which arose from the following circumstance. A 

 magpie, indulging its propensity to carry off and conceal 

 glittering objects, took a fancy to make free w*ith the church 

 plate, and in consequence thereof a maid-servant was 

 accused of the theft and delivered over to the hands of 

 justice. The accused, according to the barbarous custom 

 of that period, was put to the torture, and, a confession 

 of the crime being thus extorted, the poor girl was con- 

 demned to die. Six months after the lost plate was dis- 

 covered behind a mass of tiles on an old house, where a 

 tame magpie had concealed them and continued to add to 

 the hoard. The mass was founded on account of the 

 innocent girl who had fallen a victim to an execrable law. 

 This story was no doubt the origin of the well-known melo- 

 drama, "The Maid and the Magpie." 



A famous naturalist author mentions that he once saw 

 "taken out of a magpie's nest a crooked sixpence, of 



