on our Pilfering, Chatterbox Friend, the Magpie. 93


pletely with her mistress, when, one day, a gold bracelet was

missing.”


At once we recalled the story .... in every school-reader.”


Of course the maid was accused and she was condemned to

be executed — as thieves were in those days — in the public square.

A crowd assembled to witness the grim deed, the hangman placed a

noose about the poor girl’s neck (who even here protested her

innocence) . . when, of a sudden, a bolt of lightning from the

darkening skies rent a statue on the square and as it fell. . . ”


Oh, I know now . . Perce interrupted, “ of course!

They found a Magpie’s shattered nest and in it the missing

bracelet.”


Yes, that’s Mr. Magpie, and lie’s as wicked a thief to-day as

he was in the centuries past. More than that, he’s not at all

careful of his language.” One traveller, here last summer, told of a

Magpie out before a place of business in Seward, Alaska, who keeps

calling aloud : —


Maggie’s a pretty bird ; a right pretty bird ! ” till a crowd

collects, and then it rounds off with an oath of a blasphemous

nature.


Jack Eoosa levelled his camera to take a picture of the

Magpies, and the keeper, slipping out a coin into his pocket, grate¬

fully, drew a wallet from his inside coat pocket and produced a long

pauer.


Here’s something may interest you,” he said, as he pro¬

ceeded to read aloud much as follows :—


The Magpie,” says Montagu,” is a great enemy to the

husbandman and the preserver of game, but has cunning enough to

evade their wrath. No animal food comes amiss to its carnivorous

appetite, young poultry, eggs, young lambs, and even weakly sheep

it will attempt to destroy, by first plucking out their eyes. The

young of hares, rabbits and feathered game share the same fate ; fish,

carrion, insects, fruit, and lastly, grain, when they can get nothing

else.


It is an artful noisy bird, proclaiming aloud any apparent

danger and thereby giving notice to its associates. Neither the fox

nor other wild animal can appear without being observed and



