224 BIR D BEHAVIOUR 



As the Magpie is found in Western America 

 and all along the width of Asia in the north, it would 

 seem as if it were originally an American bird 

 which has in the course of thousands of years been 

 moving continually westwards, although on the 

 other hand the American birds may be a colony 

 which crossed Bering Straits in the opposite direction 

 to found a colony in the New World, as the Alaska 

 Wheatears are doing, in which case we might look 

 to Central Asia as the cradle of the Magpie race ; 

 it stands so much alone in the Crow tribe that it 

 has no near relatives to give us a clue. 



