96 THE LAND'S END 



have come from all the homesteads on either side for 

 a good many miles. These birds, I found, roosted 

 in the old pits, and when they had all disappeared 

 from sight and the loud noise of chirruping had died 

 into silence I walked up to one of the pits and stood 

 over it. The birds took alarm and began to issue 

 out, coming up in rushes of several hundreds at a 

 time, rush succeeding rush at intervals of a few 

 seconds while I stood by, but when I retired to some 

 distance the birds would come up in a continuous 

 stream which sometimes looked in the fading light 

 like a column of smoke rising from the ground. 



Three months later, when the sparrows were breed- 

 ing and spending their nights at home, I revisited the 

 spot, and going to the pit with the elder tree growing 

 in it had a fresh look at the old magpie nest. And 

 there was Mag herself, sitting on her pretty eggs 

 under her roof of thorny sticks ! After suffering 

 my presence for about two minutes she slipped off 

 and went away without a sound. Wishing her good 

 luck I came away, as I did not want to make her 

 unhappy by too long a visit. 



The magpie is extremely common in these parts 

 although there are no trees for them to breed in. 

 You meet with him twenty times a day when out 

 walking. He flies up a distance ahead, rising verti- 

 cally, and hovers a moment to get a good look at you, 

 then hastens away on rapidly-beating wings and slopes 

 off into the furze bushes, displaying his open gradu- 

 ated tail. He haunts the homestead and is frequently 

 to be seen associating with the poultry ; there are no 



