BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. | 261 
When hunted, their sub rosa vigilance in eluding the eye of 
the persecutor is simply marvelous, in many respects like, 
but outdoing the Cuckoo. In flocks, except after having been 
repeatedly disturbed by being shot at they are quite the 
opposite, and even become quite familiar after a time. 
I once spent some eighteen months where the Magpies were 
very numerous and bred abundantly on low branching oak 
trees that were scattered amongst the hills. The nests, for 
the size of the bird were extremely bulky, consisting of 
sticks, twigs and mud, in theorder named. ‘‘On this again isa 
lining of fine twigs, hair, feathers and any proper material 
which they can find. Over the whole, rising from the walls of 
the nest, is a dome of twigs and sticks very ingeniously and 
securely woven together and framing a shelter for the bird 
while setting. There are two openings, opposite each other, 
evidently to make room for the long tail of the bird, which 
could never be brought within the nest. The eggs are five, of 
a pale greenish, very thickly obscured with spots and dashes 
of pale purplish-brown, varying somewhat in intensity and 
being somewhat thicker at the larger end.” I have quoted the 
description from Birds of the Northwest, pp. 213-14, for the 
reason that it is so completely in accordance with my own 
observations in the foot-hills along the Cossumnes river in 
‘Sacramento county, California, where mysister so long resided. 
Nots.—When the foregoing was written, I followed Coues’ 
opinion that the Yellow-billed Magpies of that coast were but a 
variety of the present species, but not without mental protest 
(often expressed amongst local friends) which the American 
Ornithologist’s Union have confirmed in the Check List. I 
have never seen the nest of the Black-billed Magpie, and had 
supposed that the identity of the structures had been an im- 
portant factor in determining the specific unity of the two 
varieties, P. L. H. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Tail very long more than half the total length, the feathers 
much graduated, the lateral scarcely more than half the mid. 
dle. First primary falcate, curved, and attenuated; bill about 
as high as broad at the base; the culmen and gonys much 
curved, and about equal; the bristly feathers reaching nearly to 
the middle of the bill; nostrils nearly circular; tarsi very long, 
middle toe scarcely more than two thirds its length. A patch 
of naked skin beneath and behind the eye and the bill black. 
General color black; the belly, scapulars, and inner webs of 
the primaries, white; hind part of back grayish; exposed por- 
tion of the tail feathers glossy-green, tinged with purple and 
