304 THE MAGPIE 



perhaps, escape some youthful sportsman who may 

 be creeping down the hedge to have a sly shot at 

 them. The sight of a fox perhaps because the 

 magpie recognises in him her worst rival in point 

 of astuteness seems to throw her quite off her 

 balance, and makes her more than ever voluble. 

 She has sometimes been observed, with great want 

 of magnanimity, not unshared however by other 

 " higher " animals, to make repeated dashes at a 

 beaten fox, when he is labouring over his last 

 fallow ; and, more than this, she has sometimes, by 

 her scolding, guided the huntsman and the hounds 

 when they were at fault, to the spot where, exhausted, 

 but still intrepid, he is lying down and awaiting his 

 final agony, his mind made up " to fight in silence 

 and in silence die." 



Are there two kinds of magpies, as some 

 naturalists and many gamekeepers assert, in 

 England: the "tree- magpie" who builds her nest 

 high in trees, and the " bush-magpie" who builds 

 hers low in bushes, in apple trees, or even in a 

 high hedge? It is admitted that, in form and 

 colouring, in the shape of the nest and the look 

 of the eggs, they are indistinguishable ; and it is 

 surely impossible to maintain that a mere differ- 

 ence in the position of a nest, a very variable 



