LOVE OF SPORT 331 



operation which is going on, and will have some- 

 thing to say to it when he is least watched and least 

 wanted. 



I will conclude with an anecdote, illustrative of 

 the magpie's love of mischief and of sport. There 

 was a field wherein clothes were often hung out to 

 dry on posts, which were let down into deep 

 wooden sockets buried in the ground, and were 

 carried away, and put under cover, when they were 

 not in use. A gravel path led round the field, and 

 a tame magpie, which had the run of it, was observed 

 to walk repeatedly and demurely from the path to a 

 particular point in the field, conveying each time a 

 stone in her bill, and then returning without it. A 

 magpie seldom continues at any one amusement for 

 any length of time ; but this amusement went on so 

 long that the curiosity of the owner was aroused. 

 There must be something unusually novel or piquant 

 about it. He went to the spot and found that a 

 large toad had fallen into one of the wooden sockets, 

 and that the magpie was amusing herself by deliber- 

 ately stoning it ! As each shot told, the toad gave 

 a little hop of distress in the hole deep below, which 

 the magpie capped by a big hop of satisfaction, and 

 an irresistible currack of delight above. 



Pity, is it, nay a thousand pities, that this Merry 



