282 THE MAGPIE 



sorry sport, like the captive Samson among the 

 Philistines while he can have no spark of merri- 

 ment within himself for the casual onlooker or 

 passer by. A caged eagle whose flashing eye is 

 sadly eloquent of the far-away mountain tops, of 

 pinnacles of rock untrodden by man, or of the 

 boundless spaces of the air of heaven, is hardly a 

 more melancholy spectacle than is a magpie, whose 

 nature it is to be always on the move, always flitting 

 from bush to bush, or taking huge bounds over lawn 

 and lea, always inquisitive, always on the alert, 

 always cheery, confined for life within a few square 

 feet of space, with, perhaps, only one perch to vary 

 his position, his tail torn and broken against his 

 prison bars, deprived of half its length and of all its 

 beauty, the brilliant white of his body begrimed 

 with dust and dirt, till it has become a sullen grey, 

 and its iridescent and metallic shades of blue, purple, 

 bronze, and violet, reduced, to all appearance, to one 

 sordid and sombre black. The cry of Sterne's 

 starling, "I can't get out, I can't get out ! " is, to 

 him who knows and loves the character of the 

 magpie, the pathetic undersong of every cramped 

 and feverish movement of his body, and of every 

 humorous make-believe of his lissom and well-trained 

 tongue and throat. 



