iQi HISTOKV OF 



seek out also the nests of birds : and, if the parent escapes, the 

 eggs make up for tlie deficiency : the thrush and the blackbird 

 are but too frequently robbed by this assassin, and this, ia some 

 measure, causes their scarcity. 



No food seems to come amiss to this bird •, it shares with 

 ravens in their carrion, with rooks in their grain, and with the 

 cuckoo in birds' eggs : but it seems possessed of a providence 

 seldom usual with gluttons ; for when it is satisfied for the pre- 

 sent, it lays up the remainder of the feast for another occasion. 

 It will even in a tame state hide its food when it has done eat- 

 ing, and after a time return to the secret hoard with renewed 

 appetite and vociferation. 



In all its habits it discovers a degree of instinct unusual to 

 other birds. Its nest is not less remarkable for the mannei in 

 which It is composed, than for the place the magpie takes to 

 build itin. * The nest is usually placed conspicuous enough, 



• Amoiig-st our larger birds, (says Mr Rennie on the Architecture of Birds,) 

 the magpie excels all her cong-eners iu architectural skill. Several of the 

 older naturalists were inclined to attribute to her more ingenuity than facts 

 will corroborate. Albertus Magnus, for example, says she not only con- 

 structs two passages for her nest, one for entering and another for going 

 out, but frequently makes two nests on contiguous trees, with the design of 

 misleading plunderers, who may as readily choose the empty nest as the 

 one containing the eggs, on the same principle that Dionysius the tyrant 

 had thirty sleeping.rooms. Others maintain that the opening opposite the 

 passage is for the tail of the mother-magpie when hatching. Before speeu. 

 lating upon the use of this, it would have been well to ascertain its exis. 

 tence ; for among the numerous magpies' nests which we have seen (two 

 very perfect ones are now before us) the alleged second opening is by no 

 means apparent, though in some instances the twigs may appear more 

 loosely woven than in others, but seldom so much so, we think, as to per- 

 mit a passage to the bird. 



There is considerable discrepancy in the accounts given by naturalists of 

 the haimts of the magpie. " The tall tangled hedge-row," says Mr Knapp, 

 " the fir grove, or the old well- wooded iuclosure constitutes its delight, as 

 there alone its large dark nest has any chance of escaping observation.'* 

 It " always," says Jennings, " builds a solitary nest either in a thorn bush or 

 on some lofty elm, and sometimes on an apple-tree : it does not often build 

 very near dwelling houses, but a remarkable exception to this luis lately 

 occurred in Somersetshire, at Huntspill, a magpie not only having built its 

 nest ou a tree a very short distance from a dwelling-house, but it occupied 

 the same nest two years successively " 



Wilson, on the other hand, speaking, we apprehend, of its habits in Scot, 

 land as well as in America, says it " generally selects a tall tree adjoining the 

 farm-house for its nest, which is placed amongst the highest branches." 



