242 WOODLAND CREATURES 



clad in a simple livery of black and white : here we 

 have no delicately gradated tints, no colour scheme 

 that would take two or three pages to describe 

 adequately, but a bold and startling pattern 

 which one can see half a mile off, and which is 

 as conspicuous an advertisement as one can find 

 in the bird world. But the casual glance is 

 deceptive ; a second look shows the magpie's 

 colouring is not merely plain black and white. 

 The white is certainly only white, but the glossy 

 black feathers, especially the long ones of the 

 tail, become on nearer examination, any and 

 every hue save black. The feathers are exceedingly 

 glossy, and glow with metallic lights, appearing 

 purple, bronze-green, bronze, and lustrous blue. 

 Certain areas reflect certain tints, so that what 

 at first seemed such a simple colour scheme 

 resolves itself after all into quite a complicated 

 one, and a very beautiful one too. 



Though common in every wood where it can 

 escape the gamekeeper's deadly enmity, the 

 magpie is not so essentially a forest species as 

 the jay, but will wander out into the open country, 

 when its conspicuous plumage and weak wavering 

 flight proclaim its identity from afar, affording, 

 according to the number of its party, an omen to 

 those persons who are of a superstitious turn of 

 mind. The country people have a rhyme which 

 runs : 



One for sorrow, 

 Two for mirth, 

 Three for a wedding, 

 Four for a birth. 



