104 NATURAL HISTORY AND 



We trapped or poisoned the old couples of all the 

 nests but one, placed far down in an inaccessible 

 precipice. Two of these pairs were royston and 

 carrion crows breeding together. In both cases 

 the females were black, and the males grey. 

 They had built in fir and oak trees, but the two 

 couple which had nestled in the cliffs overhanging 

 the sea were all grey roystons. 



The number of magpies was so prodigious in 

 North Bute that I often wondered how any low- 

 land winged game had been raised at all. With 

 trap and poison we massacred eighteen couple of 

 old birds, each pair having a nest full of eggs or 

 young ! Jesse, in his ' Gleanings/ mentions a 

 knowing bird-dealer, who affirmed that there were 

 two species of magpie. The smaller kind, which he 

 termed " the bush magpie," always built in bushes 

 or hedgerows, while the larger ones chose the tops 

 of high slender trees. By far the greater propor- 

 tion of those destroyed by me last spring had 

 their nests in low scrubby bushes among the 

 thick cover of North Bute. The Kames magpies, 

 however, all built on the tops of high larches or 

 firs. There was no perceptible difference in size 



