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one in the North, and the question arose whether 

 this was a mere variety of our own common Magpie 

 or an accidental straggler from America, where 

 there is a species of Magpie (Pica Nuttali) which 

 resembles our own in every way except in the 

 peculiarity of the beak, which in the American 

 species is bright yellow: of course there was a 

 chance of either or both of these birds having been 

 brought over as pets in some vessel and escaped : 

 there was another supposition, namely, that these 

 two birds had been sucking eggs and that the beak 

 was coloured with the yelk ; but this seems scarcely 

 possible, as enough of the yelk would not have stuck 

 on the beak to colour it so completely as seems to 

 have been the case, or indeed to colour it at all : my 

 own opinion is that these yellow-beaked Magpies 

 were mere varieties of our Common Magpie, and I 

 do not think it very extraordinary that they should 

 have varied in the direction of so nearly related a 

 species. 



The eggs of the Magpie have a dull whitish green 

 ground, much speckled with dull lightish brown; 

 but they vary both in the shade of the ground 

 colour and of the spots, as well as in size. 



JAY, Garrulus glandarius. In spite of the many 

 enemies which combine against it, the Jay is still 

 tolerably common throughout the county, and is 

 resident all the year : it suffers, however, severely 

 from the perhaps not quite unmerited attacks of the 



