Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 493 



in Ireland*, till of late years." To a commentary on this by 

 Mr. Ogilby, published in Yarrell's ^ British Birds' (vol. ii. 

 pp. Ill, 112), the reader is referred. In the Irish Statutes, 

 17 Geo. II. ch. 10, a reward is offered for magpies, along 

 with other "four- and two-footed vermin f." 



That this bird has, like other species, increased and multiplied to 

 a goodly extent in Ireland, appears from the following circumstance. 

 In September 1836, I was informed by the intelligent and trust- 

 worthy gamekeeper at Tollymore Park (co. Down), the seat of the 

 Earl of Roden, that by ranging the countr}^ for many miles around 

 the park, he, by robbing their nests, shooting and trapping them, 

 destroyed in one half year 732 birds and eggs. At the assizes held 

 in the spring and autumn of every year he " presented" for vermin 

 killed, and on the occasion in question received 12/. for magpies, 

 &c. So long as a reward was offered for their heads, he killed im- 

 mense numbers of these birds — it was discontinued two or three 

 years previous to 1836. In extensive districts in the north of Ire- 

 land, where the farms are small, and every cottage possesses a few 

 sheltering trees, the magpie's nest is a certain accompaniment ; and 

 the trees being generally the open-topped ash, the dark ball of the 

 nest is visible from so great a distance, that 1 have often reckoned a 

 considerable number from one j^oint of view. The magpie builds 

 rather early, and in all kinds of trees, none being greater favourites 

 than fine old hawthorns : the eggs not uncommonly amount to seven 

 in number. In a note on the margin of the copy of Montagu's ' Or- 

 nithological Dictionary' which belonged to the late Mr. John Mont- 

 gomer}', of Locust Lodge near Belfast, an accurate observer, it is 

 stated, that " when angry or alarmed for the safety of its young, the 



* Derricke, who wrote his ' Image of Ireland ' in Queen Elizabeth's time, 



" No pies to pluck the thatch from house 



Are breed in Irishe grounde, 

 But worse than pies, the same to burne 



A thousande male be founde." 



Letter xxvi, vol. ii. p. 309, 2nd edit, 

 f The following notice of the magpie appears in the lately published 

 ' Tracts relating to Ireland,' printed for tlie Irish Archaeological Society, 

 vol. i. In ' A brife Description of Ireland, made in this yeere 1589, by 

 Robert Payne,' it is remarked — " There is neither mol, pije, nor carren 

 crow." In a note to this, contributed by Dr. Aquila Smith of Dublin, it 

 is observed, " As to the magpie {Pica caitdata) our author is probably cor- 

 rect, for Derricke, who wrote in 1581, in his ' Image of Ireland,' says — 

 [ — the four lines above quoted are introduced here.] ' Ireland,' says 

 Moryson, in 1G17, 'hath neither singing nightingall, nor chattering pije, 

 nor undermining moule.' Itinerary, part iii. b. iii. p. IGO. [The extract 

 elsewhere given from Smith's ' Cork' appears here.] The earliest notice 

 of this bird as indigenous in Ireland is in Kcogh's ' Zoologia Medicinalis 

 Hibernica,' Dublin, 8vo, 1739 : he merely mentions the ' magpie or pianet, 

 Jlib. Mayyidipije.' This evidently Anglo-Irish word, for we have no name 

 for it in tlie ancient Irish language, favours the opinion held by our best- 

 informed naturalists, that this bird is of recent introduction into this 

 coimtry." 



