26 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



raven had watched the operation very quietly, and, 

 we may suppose, felt a strong ambition to do the 

 like. When the coach was about arriving, and the 

 dinner carried in, behold, the whole paraphernalia 

 of the dinner-table had vanished ! It was a moment 

 of consternation, silver spoons, knives, forks, all 

 gone. But what was the surprise and amusement to 

 see, through the open window, upon a heap of rubbish 

 in the yard, the whole array carefully set out, and 

 the raven performing the honours of the table to a 

 numerous party of poultry which he had summoned 

 about him, and was very consequentially regaling 

 with bread*. 



M. Antoine tells us that there is an annual mass, 

 called the magpie mass, said in the church of St. John 

 en Greve, which arose from the following circum- 

 stance. A magpie, indulging its propensity to carry 

 off and conceal glittering objects, took a fancy to 

 make free with the church plate, and in consequence 

 thereof a maid servant was accused of the theft and 

 delivered over to the hands of justice. The accused, 

 according to the barbarous custom of that period, was 

 put to the torture, and a confession of the crime being 

 thus extorted, the poor girl was condemned to die. 

 Six months after the lost plate was discovered behind 

 a mass of tiles on an old house, where a tame magpie 

 had concealed them and continued to add to the 

 hoard. The mass was founded on account of the 

 innocent girl who had fallen a victim to an execrable 

 law t- This story was no doubt the origin of the well- 

 known melo-drama, the Maid and the Magpie. The 

 author of the British Naturalist tells us that he once saw 

 44 taken out of a magpie's nest, a crooked sixpence of 

 which some village fair one had haply been despoiled, 

 a tailor's thimble, two metal buttons, a small plated 



* Hort. Register, Jan. 1832, p. 332. 

 f Auimaux Celebres, ii. 118 ; and Mercier, Tail, de Paris. 



