224 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



roof-building. So it comes that the Magpie alone covers 

 her nest with a roof of sticks. Even the learned of our 

 own time would fain have us believe that the roof of the 

 Magpie's nest is for the purpose of concealing its eggs or 

 young, or preventing the visits of predaceous birds and 

 animals. But the grave theorists forget that all birds 

 can find an entrance at the same point of ingress as 

 the parent birds themselves. Are not also the young 

 brood of the Carrion Crow in their bare and elevated 

 cradle much more exposed to the same danger ? 



The Magpie sometimes returns for years to its old 

 abode, if not molested. In other cases where the nest 

 is abandoned the old tenement proves a fitting site for 

 the nursery of the Kestrel or Windhover. In some few 

 instances I have known Magpies return to the old nest, 

 even though the eggs were removed the previous 

 season. 



The eggs of the Magpie, for a predaceous bird, are 

 numerous, and herein probably lies the cause of the bird's 

 abundance, in spite of a sad and unwarranted persecution. 

 I have found nests containing the unusual number of nine 

 eggs, seven and eight are a frequent number, but perhaps 

 six are most frequently found. The female bird sits very 

 closely on her charge, notably when her eggs are ap- 

 proaching maturity, and she will not unfrequently re- 

 main brooding over them until you reach her nest. The 

 eggs are varied in their markings, and very small for the 

 size of the bird. Indeed, in viewing some nests contain- 

 ing eggs, you are almost inclined to think that a Black- 

 bird had been and laid there too. They are of a light 

 bluish-green in ground colour, with greenish-brown 

 markings equally distributed over the entire surface of 

 the egg. Some specimens are almost white, with a few 

 pale olive-green markings at the larger end ; while others 



