THE MAGPIE. 



Docility Surprising mimicry. 



six or seven eggs, of a pale green colour, spotted 

 with brown. 



When kept in a domestic state, the magpie 

 still preserves its natural character with strict 

 propriety. The same noisy, mischievous habits 

 attend it to the cage that were conspicuous in 

 the woods; and being more cunning, so it is also 

 a more docile bird than any other taken into 

 keeping. It may be easily taught to articulate 

 not only words, but sentences, very distinctly, 

 and even to imitate any particular noise that it 

 hears. In illustration of this, Plutarch relates, 

 that a barber at Rome had a magpie which pos- 

 sessed the imitative faculty to a surprising extent. 

 Some trumpets happened one day to be sounded 

 before the shop ; and for a day or two afterwards 

 the magpie was quite mute, and seemed pensive 

 and melancholy. This surprised all who knew 

 it; and they supposed that the sound of the 

 trumpets had so stunned it as to deprive it at the 

 same time both of voice and hearing. It ap- 

 pears, however, that this was not the case; 

 " for," says our author, " the bird had been all 

 the time occupied in profound meditation, and 

 was studying how to imitate the sound of the 

 trumpets: accordingly, in the first attempt, it 

 perfectly imitated all their repetitions, stops, and 

 changes. This new lesson, however, made it en- 

 tirely forget every thing that it had learned 

 before." 

 . The magpie is found in certain districts pf 



