328 corvidje. 



THE MAGPIE. 



Pica caudata. 

 Corvus pica, Linn. 



Has long been common throughout the island. 



Smith, in his History of the county of Cork, published in 1749, 

 remarks, that it ' ' was not known in Ireland seventy years ago, 

 but is now very common." Rutty, in his Natural History of 

 Dublin, observes, that ' ' it is a foreigner, naturalized here since 

 the latter end of King James the Second's reign, and is said to 

 have been driven hither by a strong wind." (!) Dean Swift thus 

 alludes to it in his Journal to Stella: — "Pray observe the in- 

 habitants about Wexford ; they are old English ; see what they 

 have particular in their manners, name, and language. Magpies 

 have been always there, and nowhere else in Ireland, till of late 

 years." * To a commentary on this, by Mr. Ogilby, published in 

 YarrelTs British Birds (vol. ii. p. Ill), the reader is referred. In 

 the Irish Statutes, 17 Geo. II. ch. 10, a reward is offered for 

 magpies, along with other "four, and two-footed vermin." f 



* Derricke, who wrote his Image of Ireland, in Queen Elizabeth's time, says — 



" No pies to pluck the thatch from house 

 Are breed in Irishe grounde, 

 But worse than pies, the same to burne 

 A thousande maie be iouude." 



Letter xxvi, vol. ii. p. 309, 2nd edit. 



f The following notice of the magpie appears in the 1st volume of Tracts, printed 

 for the Irish Archffiological Society. In " A brife Description of Ireland, made in this 

 yeere 1589, by Robert Payne," it is remarked — " There is neither mol, pye, nor car- 

 ren crow." In a note to this, contributed by Dr. Aquiila Smith of Dublin, it is 

 observed : " As to the magpie {Pica caudata), our author is probably correct, for 

 Derricke, who wrote in 1581, in his Image of Ireland, says — [ — the four lines above 

 quoted are introduced here]. ' Ireland,' says Moryson, in 1617, ' hath neither singing 

 nightingall, nor chattering pye, nor undermining moule.' Itinerary, part iii. b. iii. 

 p. 160. [The extract elsewhere given from Smith's Cork appears here.] The 

 earliest notice of this bird as indigenous in Ireland is in Keogh's Zoologia Medicinalis 

 Hibernica, Dublin, 8vo, 1739: he merely mentions the 'magpie or pianet, Hid. 

 Maggidipye.' This evidently Anglo-Irish word, for we have no name for it in the 

 ancient Irish language, favours the opinion held by our best-iufonned naturalists, 

 that this bird is of recent introduction into this country." 



