102 THE MAGPIE. 



may be allowed to range half a day at once. If it also learn 

 to speak, the bird is all the more valuable. Even the old 

 birds, which are easily caught in winter, by limed twigs baited 

 with meat, may be accustomed to frequent the poultry yard 

 if their wings be cut in summer, and allowed to grow again 

 through the autumn. In this case they return without timi- 

 dity, and rear their young in summer, not far from the house, 

 expecting to be supplied with food from the kitchen. It is not 

 safe to leave near them anything shining, or metallic ; for they 

 will carry it away, and hide it in the ground with their super- 

 fluous food. 



A friend writes to me, " I once reared a Magpie, which fol- 

 lowed me about for a caress like a cat. It came at my call, 

 without having been taught ; and often followed me for hours, 

 so that I had the greatest difficulty to get rid of it, and was 

 obliged to confine it, if going where I could not take it. It 

 was wild with any one else, though able to distinguish in any 

 countenance the slightest change of expression. It some- 

 times flew to a great distance with its wild companions, but 

 nerer entirely deserted me for them." 



ADDITIONAL. In relation to the popular superstitions which 

 have gathered around this well-known bird, and made it an omen 

 of good and evil, some striking and pertinent observations will 

 be found in MUDIE'S History, as well as much interesting infor- 

 mation as to its habits and characteristics. 



Owing, perhaps, principally to the hostility of gamekeepers, 

 sportsmen, and gardeners, Magpies are nowhere very numerous, 

 although they are to be met with in all the cultivated and wooded 

 districts of England, Ireland, and Scotland ; in the outer Hebri- 

 des, however, the Shetland and Orkney isles, according to MAC- 

 GILLIVEAY, they are never seen, and but rarely in the large tracts 

 of the Scottish central regions, because their habits unfit them to 

 remain far from human habitations, where this naturalist thus 

 graphically describes their haunts and habits : " On the old ash 

 that overshadows the farm -yard, you may see a pair, one perched 

 on the topmost twig, the other hopping among the branches, 

 uttering an incessant clatter of short hard notes, scarcely resem- 

 bling anything else in nature, but withal not unpleasant, at least 

 to the lover of birds. How gracefully she of the top twig swings 

 in the breeze ! off she starts, and directing her flight towards the 

 fir-wood opposite, proceeds with a steady, moderately rapid, but 

 rather heavy flight, performed by quick beats of her apparently 

 short wings, intermitted for a moment at intervals. Chattering 



