DOUBTFUL CHARACTERS in 



places that have not yet passed under so-called 

 improvements. But when it comes to this, 

 that you are forced to go one hundred miles, 

 or it may be more, to see some bird that at 

 one time was so common that its very name 

 was a byword, it has been well thinned off. 

 And this is the case now with the crow. 



The beautiful magpie, commonly called black 

 and white, but one that in reality has the met- 

 allic hues of the Impeyan pheasant flashing 

 from the dark portions of its plumage, was at 

 one time so numerous as to be considered 

 somewhat of a nuisance. If this was ever a 

 fair indictment, the nuisance has now been 

 nearly rooted out. As game was not pre- 

 served in the wild part of the country where 

 I first watched his ways and means of living* 

 my remarks on him and his surroundings will 

 not bear in any way on that vexed question. 

 All I can write about is from five years' obser- 

 vations of magpie ground extending a little 

 over three miles : there must have been some- 

 thing in that line of country that perfectly 

 suited these birds, for I have never seen them 

 in such numbers in any other place, though 

 I have sought for them. 



It was a bleak bit of country ; there was a 



