THE MAGPIE'S ODYSSEY 223 



it was the " Lycian Daw " of Aristotle, which is not 

 described, but merely mentioned by name among 

 other " Daws, 3 ' in his work on the u History of 

 Animals." The bird the Greeks called Kiss a or 

 Kitta, which some scholars have taken for the 

 Magpie, was evidently the Jay, since Aristotle 

 mentions its characteristic habit of storing away 

 the acorns, and in enumerating the various species 

 of Thrushes compares the Missel-Thrush to it 

 in size, a comparison for which the Magpie would 

 be obviously unsuitable owing to its long tail. 

 The Pica of the Romans, from which word the 

 French and English " Pie " is evidently derived, 

 was also the Jay, for here again the acorn- eating 

 habit is mentioned by Pliny, who also speaks of his 

 Pica, as Chaucer, so many centuries later, mentions 

 the Jay, as a bird kept for talking. The Roman 

 naturalist also gives us a definite clue to the extension 

 of the Magpie's range in his time, for he says that 

 of late years a new sort of Pie (Pica) had appeared 

 in the neighbourhood of Rome, noticeable for its 

 varied (or pied) colouring and long tail. 



Many centuries later we have a definite historical 

 record of another westerly irruption of Magpies, 

 when about the year 1676 a flock of about a dozen 

 is stated to have arrived in Wexford the ancestors 

 of the numerous Magpies which now form so 

 noticeable a feature in the bird-life of Ireland. 

 That they did not inhabit that island previously is 

 known from the " Itinerary " of Fynes Morison, 

 who expressly notices their absence in 1617. 



