14 THE BIRDS OF CALCUTTA. 



find in it a dangerous competitor, for a bird that is active 

 both below and aloft has advantages which few possess. 



A word seems needed for other exotic Magpies often 

 seen in Calcutta as pets. These are the white-backed and 

 black-backed Australian Magpies, better known in books, 

 as Piping Crows (Gymnorhina leuconota and G. tibicen). 

 These are short- tailed pied birds, about the size of the com- 

 mon house-crow, and are quite as much allied to the shrikes- 

 as to the true crows, though they more closely resemble 

 the latter in form and habits. They have and deserve a 

 high reputation, for they are good and very free talkers, 

 and their own natural note is a beautiful whistle, very 

 different from the varied cacophony of the genuine Magpie 

 and crow. It is not surprising, therefore, that they 

 readily learn to whistle tunes, though in their case, as in 

 our own, "a little knowledge" is objectionable. The 

 London Zoo had one once which persistently whistled a 

 line and a half of a song. With this, as the late Mr. A. 

 Bartlett told me, he habitually saluted the morn, and got 

 so annoying that he had to be banished from the pre- 

 cincts of the Superintendent's dwelling to the Western 

 Aviary. For, as the narrator of the episode said, he 

 "used to lie in bed and sweat, waiting for him to begin !** 



