THE MAGPIE. 13 



feet, and thrives particularly well there, hill specimens 

 being of larger growth than those bred lower down. This 

 is curious, for our cinnamon friend has a relative which is 

 a thorough mountaineer, never living in the plains, though 

 I have seen it as low down as Raj pore in the Boon. And 

 this bird is smaller than the common one, although living 

 under the same conditions in which its rival so adds to its 

 stature. This hill Tree-pie (Dendrocitta kimalayensis) 

 is not so handsome a bird as its more widely distribut- 

 ed relative, its prevailing hue being a dark iron-grey. 



Wherever our "wandering Pie" as it is called in some 

 books goes in India, it will find poor relatives, much re- 

 sembling itself in all but colour, which, for some reason or 

 other, have failed to spread as Dendrocitta rufa has 

 done. At present the problem defies solution ; but as the 

 distribution of birds generally has been pretty well map- 

 ped out by this time, I hope the day is not far distant 

 when ornithologists will begin to try and find out the 

 reasons for it why, for instance, one species of a genus 

 should be able to live almost anywhere, as in the present 

 case, while the others have bounds set to their 

 wanderings. 



The European Magpie, sometimes seen as a pet in 

 Calcutta, where it has been imported from China, is 

 another good case of a successful bird, for it is found all 

 round the Northern Hemisphere, and is still extending its 

 range, having invaded Ireland and become very common 

 there even in human knowledge, though not by any means 

 recently. Even in our Indian Empire it appears in Cash- 

 mere and Upper Burma, and the clan of Tree-pies may yet 





