168 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



MAGPIE FIELDS. 



THERE were ten magpies together on the 9th of 

 September, 1881, in a field of clover beside a road but 

 twelve miles from Charing Cross. Ten magpies would 

 be a large number to see at once anywhere in the 

 south, and not a little remarkable so near town. The 

 magpies were doubtless young birds which had packed, 

 and were bred in the nests in the numerous elms of 

 the hedgerows about there. At one time they were 

 scattered over the field, their white and black colours 

 dotted everywhere, so that they seemed to hold entire 

 possession of it. 



Then a knot of them gathered together, more came 

 up, and there they were all ten fluttering and rest- 

 lessly moving. After a while they passed on into the 

 next field, which was stubble, and, collected in a 

 bunch, were even more conspicuous there, as the 

 stubble did not conceal them so much as the clover. 

 That was on the 9th of September ; by the end 

 of the month weeds had grown so high that the 

 stubble itself in that field had disappeared, and from 

 a distance it looked like pasture. In the stubble 

 the magpies remained till I could watch them no 

 longer. 



