CRIME AND CRIMINALITY. 153 



miser does. But the magpie or rat, in common with the 

 man, hoards for no rational end : and if the propensity be 

 regarded as morbid in the one case, it must be equally so in 

 the other ; in other words, the hoards of the magpie and 

 rat are to be attributed, like those of the human miser, to a 

 morbid acquisitiveness or avarice. 



The most notorious thief of bright, glittering, metallic 

 articles among the lower animals is the magpie, the pilfering 

 feats of which have been celebrated in the verse of the poet 

 and the fiction of the novelist, as well as in the matter-of- 

 fact narrative of the naturalist. But there are sundry other 

 birds that exhibit the same propensity, and among them the 

 New Zealand wood-hen, which has an evil reputation with 

 the settlers for this class of misdeeds (Baden Powell). Here 

 we have an animal a stranger to man, with his sparkling 

 coins, wire, tin-plate, and so forth. The bird shows the same 

 desire to possess itself of man's baubles, makes the same 

 kind of open or surreptitious efforts at their possession, 

 displays, it may be, the same covetousness and cunning that 

 many savage races of man do on first coming in contact 

 with their white brother. These human savages help them- 

 selves, if they can, to all the movables on board ship, being 

 fascinated by mirrors, cutlery, and jewellery. In the first 

 instance, at least, there is as little rational motive for the 

 theft as in the case of the magpie or wood-hen. No doubt 

 in course of time savages learn, by imitation from the sailors, 

 that certain of the stolen articles may be applied to certain 

 purposes, and they may or do so apply them, using wire, 

 coins, or jewels for ornamenting the person. But the mon- 

 key and probably other animals do the same. 



Wood mentions a tame jackdaw that stole rings and jewel- 

 lery or other small movables of any kind from bed- rooms, 

 which it entered by the open windows a circumstance that 

 should be borne in mind when maid-servants are suspected 

 of, or charged with, the theft or loss of coins or jewellery. 

 For there are many well authenticated cases of such thefts, 

 that were really committed by pet birds, or by rats, having 

 been charged against perfectly innocent servant girls, who 

 have lost place and pay, reputation, and even health and life, 



