} 
238 THE MAGPIE. 
become vociferous at the approach of night; and 
he who loves to watch the movements of animated 
nature, may observe them, in small detached 
companies, proceeding to their wonted roosting- 
places, in some wood of spruce, pine, or larch, 
which they seem to prefer to any other. There 
they become valuable watchmen for the night. 
Whoever enters the grove is sure to attract their 
special notice; and then their chattering is inces- 
sant. Whenever I hear it during the night, or 
even during the day (except towards nightfall), I 
know that there is mischief on the stir. Three 
years ago, at eleven o'clock in broad day, I was at 
the capture of one of the most expert and des- 
perate marauders that ever scourged this part of 
the country. He had annoyed me for a length of 
time ; and was so exceedingly cunning, that, when 
we went in pursuit of him, he always contrived to 
escape, either by squatting down in the thick cover 
of the woods, or by taking himself off in time, 
when he saw us approach. At last, he owed his 
capture to the magpies. We were directed to the 
place of his depredations by the incessant chatter- 
ings of these birds in the tops of the trees, just 
over the spot where he was working in his vocation. 
He had hanged fourteen hares; and the ground 
was so covered with brambles and brushwood, that, 
when we surprised him, he told us that we never 
should have found him, had it not been for the 
cursed magpies. His name was Kirk. In the 
course of the following summer, he set out on his 
aS. 
