288 THE MAGPIE 



during two or three months of the year, when he 

 has five or six growing young to feed, he is an 

 active and skilful birds'-nester, sparing neither eggs, 

 nor callow, nor fully fledged young birds. But that 

 his misdeeds, even during these three months, are 

 much exaggerated is clear, I think, from two facts : 

 first, that in Norway, and in other countries where 

 he is protected and domiciled, there is no lack of 

 young ducks, young poultry, and young pigeons 

 running loose ; and secondly, because smaller birds 

 never seem to regard him as their natural enemy, 

 never mob him as rooks or swallows and martins 

 will mob a hawk or cuckoo ; or as starlings, black- 

 birds, and thrushes will, in their ignorance and 

 presumption, mob the stranger and belated owl. 

 A magpie, with his very small wings and uncertain 

 flight, could not catch any full-grown bird upon the 

 wing, even if he would. Charles Waterton con- 

 gratulates himself that he had thirty-four nests of 

 the magpie, in one year, in his park, implying a 

 sum total, when all had reared their young in safety, 

 of some 200 birds ; and yet nobody who knows the 

 facts will deny that other birds also, of almost every 

 possible variety, and in exceptionally large numbers, 

 including partridges and pheasants, were to be found 

 in his domains. 



