486 Practical Game Preserving. 



order to set two or three quick-striking gins around the 

 dead and mauled coney, and leave them for twenty minutes 

 or thereabouts, he will doubtless catch one if not two 

 magpies. We were singularly fortunate on one occasion, 

 when working in this manner, after setting two gins against 

 a rabbit. We had not retired more than a hundred and fifty 

 yards before we had two in the traps, and so returned and 

 reset them, and were about the same distance away when 

 two more magpies were in difficulties. A third setting 

 resulted in one more before the afternoon. All five were 

 fully grown young birds. 



Jays have predilections for certain trees, chiefly oak and 

 ash, the former of not large size, and we have on many 

 occasions found a trap or two fixed on the branches about 

 two-thirds up and close to the trunk prove efficacious. 

 The traps represented in Figs. 29 and 30 are the most 

 suitable. 



Some gateways are particularly affected by magpies as 

 places from which -to observe the surrounding fields, &c., 

 and the events occurring therein. Nearly every gate has 

 a side-piece by which it is hung to the post a foot or so 

 higher than the top bar, and any magpie taking a look 

 round will doubtless get upon the more elevated portion. 

 Therefore it is advisable, if one desire to take the frequenters 

 of such positions, to place a trap, for choice the single- 

 spring magpie trap (Fig. 29), upon the top of the wood, 

 and having set and adjusted it, fasten it to the wood by 

 means of a large wire staple over the ring of the chain, 

 which must hang down on the post end of the gate. If 

 ope consider the place suitable, and be sufficiently at home 



