A Naturalist’s Notes from the Bush 353 
that fly.’ As a rule, however, even the long-suffermg scornful endurance of the 
eagle at length wears out, and with exquisite leisure those huge pinions slowly fan 
the atmosphere, sweeping their majestic owner far away to regions of silent solitude 
among the mountain heights, where the perplexing onslaught of magpies is an 
affliction rarely experienced. Now that the cause of excitement has departed, black 
objects, like stones, are seen dropping from the sky, and such a hilarious chorus of 
magpie vocalism fills the air that one might well think the eagle had been gloriously 
conquered, struck to the earth and done to death, imstead of proving with withering 
dignity its disgust for such garrulous proceedings by quitting a locality thus con- 
taminated. However, the jubilant magpies are thoroughly satisfied with themselves, 
as the loud note of victory in their long-continued song plainly suggests. 
No bushman will refute the remark that the sweet notes of the magpie are 
scarcely excelled by any bird which flies at large midst the Victorian forests. The 
YOUNG AUSTRALIAN MAGPIES IN NEST. 
principal attractions of its vocal efforts, which never fail to install the bird in a 
position of high rank among bush songsters, are the sweetness of its full-toned notes, 
the pleasing variety of flute-like warblings, and the interesting faculty, possessed in a 
more or less pronounced degree, of learning to imitate the whistled instructions of its 
owner. Among the river-gums at break of day, shortly after the ringing laughter of 
the great angina has nenaldied the rising of the sun, the dulcet machina of the 
magpie are voiced to perfection, all their truest notes being heard to advenianee owing 
to the unending miles of silent bush offering no sume which might distant the 
oft-repeated melody. 
During the nesting season the magpie develops a determined aversion for the presence 
of the inane race, ead with unparalleled ferocity vents its insidious attacks upon every 
man, woman, or child daring to venture within a given radius of its nesting-place. 
