11) 





MAGPIE. 



COMMON MAGPIE. PIAXET. MADGE. 



Pica cu.udu.ta, Fr/KMING. SKLBV. GOULD. 



Corcus Pica, PENNANT. MONTAGU. 



Pica A Pic A Magpie. Caudata Tailed, (a factitious word.) 



IF I remember aright, in the great French Revolution, the 

 zeal of the people for 'liberte' was so great, that they opened 

 the doors of all the cages, and let the birds fly out. I should 

 have enjoyed the sight; though some of the captives perhaps 

 preferred remaining where they were, and did not value the 

 unwonted freedom which they had never known the possession 

 of, even as the poor prisoner who returned to the dungeon, 

 with whose walls he had become familiar. To him the world 

 was become the prison, the spider a more agreeable companion 

 than his fellow-man: certainly he had found the one more 

 friendly than the other. Nothing is to me more miserable 

 than to see a bird in a cage, and, with reference to the species 

 before us, who can tell what a Magpie is, either in character 

 or in beauty, from only seeing him thus confined? He is, 

 when himself, a brilliant a splendid bird; gay alike in nature 

 and in plumage. 



The Magpie is met with in Europe, Asia, Africa, and 

 America, being found in Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, 

 Lapland, Norway, and Greece, Asia Minor, Russia, and Si- 

 beria ; India, China, and Japan, and the United States. 



It is common in all wooded parts of the three kingdoms 

 of England, Ireland, and Scotland, but is unknown, except 

 as a straggler, in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, or the Shetland 

 Islands. Shy and wary, it keeps at a secure distance from 



VOL. II. E 



