<BL.JCK J3^D WHITS 29 



The sister island has no lack of magpies in our days. 

 In the North of Ireland a troop of twenty is by no 

 means rare, and once at least more than two hundred 

 magpies were observed in noisy conclave, debating in 

 no measured tones some urgent business of the State. 



The magpie is spoken of by one high authority as a 

 bird that has become rare in England. This is very 

 likely true of the highly cultivated enclosures and 

 jealously guarded game coverts of the Home and the 

 Eastern counties; but in grazing districts, especially 

 in a hilly country, where copse-land and clumps of trees 

 have not been cleared to make way for the plough, it is 

 at least in the farmer's eyes all too common still. 



The magpie's nest is pointed to by many legends as 

 the triumph of the builder's art. One tale relates how 

 all the birds assembled in a crowd to take lessons of the 

 chief constructor; how they watched him at his work, 

 with a running commentary of " I thought that was the 

 way to begin ; " " Certainly, I knew that must come 

 next ; " " Anybody could tell how to do that ; " until the 

 exasperated pie broke off abruptly, saying it was clear 

 they could need no help from him. Since then, the 

 legend adds, no bird but he can build a perfect nest. It 

 is the stronghold of a freebooter. It is roofed and 

 barricaded with such a strong defence of thorns, and all 

 the branches near are so interlaced with sticks and 

 briers, that it is often no easy matter to effect an 

 entrance. And if ever he is driven to make his home 

 low down, as in the stunted trees of Dartmoor one of 

 those solitary thorns, perhaps, that the moormen shun 



