WHITS 31 



Small heed was paid in those days to scratched face 

 and bleeding hands ; still less to tattered trousers. The 

 only question was whether the eggs were " sat " or not. 



Nor was much notice taken of the indignant owners 

 of the nest, who, scolding, chattering, swearing, kept up 

 their angry protest till their foes were out of sight. 



The magpie's note is an index of his character. A 

 troop of pies, holding as they sometimes will a council 

 in the tree-tops on the edge of the wood with their 

 clear scraps of speech, their short, sharp questions and 

 replies, the signals of scouts, and the grave comments of 

 the elders have an air of respectability in spite of some 

 degree of curtness. But take an old magpie unaware, 

 or scare him from some deed of blood or plunder, and 

 his language then will give you more insight into his 

 nature. An unquiet, noisy spirit the first to raise the 

 hue and cry at the approach of danger j the last to settle 

 down when the intruder has retreated. 



In one of those accounts of the origin of birds which 

 are foreign altogether to the views of modern science, 

 Ovid throws some light on the ancestry of the race, as 

 well as on the speech of magpies. The daughters of 

 Pierios, he tells us, carried away by their vanity, 

 challenged the Muses to a joust of song. Defeated, but 

 not shamed, the jeers of the unsuccessful singers were 

 cut short by their swift translation to a set of magpies. 

 Driven to the woods, goes on the story, they still keep 

 up their unmusical clamour : 



" The same their eloquence, as maids or birds ; 

 Now only noise, and nothing then but words. " 



