THE MAGPIE. 331 



often so far gregarious as to roost in considerable numbers at 

 particular groves, near their feeding-ground, to which they 

 resort in straggling flocks : I have thus reckoned twenty-six 

 on wing together, when the distance between the first and last, 

 was like that of an ill-matched pack of hounds during the chace. 

 November the 20th, 1838, was a dull, dark, true November day 

 throughout, and so early as half-past two o' clock, p.m., I saw 

 about twenty of these birds that had evidently retired to roost for 

 the night. On being alarmed they flew from a fine old willow 

 on the banks of the Lagan, and looked very beautiful as they 

 rose together. 



Magpies are very generally persecuted with us on account of 

 their evil propensities. One friend complains that Ins garden has 

 suffered much from their depredations on cherries and other fruit; 

 another, that the eggs of game, &c, are greatly destroyed by them: 

 — their propensity for eggs is taken advantage of for their destruc- 

 tion, and they become victims to the trap baited with those of our 

 domestic fowl. Grain, too, they certainly consume, but their 

 numbers are not anywhere so great as to do much injury to it. 

 That they do considerable good, I have had positive evidence from 

 an examination of the contents of their stomachs (supplied me by 

 bird-preservers) at various times, but particularly in winter ; when 

 almost every one contained insects (chiefly Coleoptera) , or the re- 

 mains of mice and slugs, (the internal shell of these, constituting the 

 genus Limacellus, Brard., only remaining), mixed with which occa- 

 sionally appeared oats and other grain. In winter, the magpie, 

 as well as others of the Corrida, is of great service to the public, 

 by resorting in numbers to such meadows as are manured with 

 the offensive refuse of the slaughter-house, and feeding on the tit- 

 bits.* On the 1st of Sept., 1847, I was interested in observing 

 one of these handsome birds perched on a tall rowan or mountain- 

 ash tree, close to Holywood House, picking off and eating the ripe 

 scarlet berries, as eagerly as any of the thrush genus could have done. 



* Since writing my account of the magpie, I find that this and several other par- 

 ticulars noticed are treated of by Mr. Waterton, in his Essays on Natural History. 

 His description of the bird throughout is excellent. 



