MAGPIES' NESTS. 89 



their inveterate enemy, and they are ruth- 

 lessly destroyed whenever they can be caught. 

 This will account, to some extent, for the 

 comparative paucity of their numbers. With 

 so many persistent enemies any other tribe 

 of birds would long since have been exter- 

 minated, but the magpie knows how to take 

 care of himself. Magpies generally build 

 their nests in the topmost branches of the 

 tallest trees they can find, 1 and many a time 

 as a boy have I climbed to those giddy 

 heights among the weak and slender boughs, 

 frequently only to be disappointed. 



When you get up to the nest it by no means 

 follows that you can get your hand into it, for 

 it has a broad and firm base nearly a yard in 

 diameter, and it is strongly covered over with 

 a crown of prickly thorns, the access being 

 on one side only under this canopy, and with 

 a perversity of cunning, as I used to think, 

 that opening always happened to be on the 

 side most difficult of approach. This was a 

 point evidently well considered by the astute 

 builders in laying the foundation. Now, if 



1 "A pair of magpies in a district where there were no trees 

 made their nest in a gooseberry bush, and surrounded it 

 with brambles, furze, &c., in so ingenious a manner that no 

 one could get at the eggs without pulling the materials to 

 pieces." JESSE'S Notes, White's Selborne. 



