328 THE MAGPIE 



in any way, equal to the raven. Fun she has in 

 abundance, but hardly humour. Conscious humour, 

 that high and rare gift of man, which interpenetrates 

 and colours everything in life, is, I think, possessed, 

 in germ, by the raven, and the raven alone. You 

 see it in his eye, in the pose of his head, in his 

 walk, in every movement of his body. The eye of 

 the magpie is, like the wit of Dickens, always on 

 the move, nervous, excitable, glittering, scintillating. 

 The eye of the raven is like the humour of Gold- 

 smith ; it has a far-away look, it dreams, it thinks, 

 "it bodes and it bodes," it all but smiles. The 

 magpie will pick up many words or even sentences ; 

 and the old superstition that she will only talk, 

 or talk well, if her tongue is slit with a thin and 

 sharp silver sixpence, died a natural death about 

 the time that the coins of the realm had to be 

 "milled," and thus were rendered unsuitable for 

 so stupidly cruel an operation. 



Pliny knew more of the aptitudes and capabilities 

 of a pet magpie than did our forefathers. The 

 magpie, he says, is less famed for his talking powers 

 than the parrot, only because he is more easily 

 obtained and is at our doors. He talks more, and 

 more clearly, than does the parrot. He is vehe- 

 mently in love (adamat) with the words he has 



