Chap. XIV.] UNPAIRED BIRDS. 99 



never met with any account of regular assemblages of 

 black game in Scotland, yet these assemblages are so well 

 known in Germany and Scandinavia that they have spe- 

 cial names. 



Unpaired Birds. — From the facts now given, we may 

 conclude that with birds belonging to widely-different 

 groups their courtship is often a prolonged, delicate, and 

 troublesome affair. There is even reason to suspect, im- 

 probable as this will at first appear, that some males and 

 females of the same species, inhabiting the same district, 

 do not always please each other, and in consequence do 

 not pair. Many accounts have been published of either 

 the male or female of a pair having been shot, and quickly 

 replaced by another. This has been observed more fre- 

 quently with the magpie than with any other bird, owing 

 perhaps to its conspicuous appearance and nest. The 

 illustrious Jenner states that in Wiltshire one of a pair 

 was daily shot no less than seven times successively, " but 

 all to no purpose, for the remaining magpie soon found 

 another mate ; " and the last pair reared their young. A 

 new partner is generally found on the succeeding day ; 

 but Mr. Thompson gives the case of one being replaced 

 on the evening of the same day. Even after the eggs are 

 hatched, if one of the old birds is destroyed, a mate will 

 often be found ; this occurred after an interval of two days, 

 in a case recently observed by one of Sir J. Lubbock's 

 keepers.' The first and most obvious conjecture is, that 

 male magpies must be much more numerous th"an the fe- 

 males ; and that in the above cases, as well as in many oth- 

 ers which could be given, the males alone had been killed. 

 This apparently holds good in some instances, for the 



* On magpies, Jenner, in 'Phil. Transact.' 1824, p. 21. Macgillivray, 

 ' Hist. British Birds,' vol. i. p. 570. Thompson, in ' Amials and Mag. of 

 Nat. Hist.' vol. viii. 1842, p. 494. 



