238 MAGPIE. 
Eastward—subject to a variation in the amount of white in the 
plumage, which has led to the creation of several species—the 
Magpie is found across Asia to India, China and Japan, as well as in 
the northern portion of America from the Pacific to Michigan ; but 
in California it is represented by P. xutfalz, with yellow bill and 
ear-patch. Algeria and Morocco are inhabited by P. mauritanica, 
which has a bare blue ear-patch and no grey on the rump; and 
although Magpies in Spain down to Seville are identical with 
those from Norway, yet examples from the Alpujarras, where a 
geologically-recent connection with Africa existed, are distinctly 
intermediate between the typical and the African species. 
The nest, large and domed, is often begun towards the end of 
March, and is made of thorny sticks on a foundation of turf and 
clay plastered with earth inside, fine roots and dry grass being the 
lining. It is generally placed at some height in the fork of a tree, 
but often in tall—though sometimes in very low—hedges and thorn- 
bushes ; while in Norway it is occasionally under the eaves of houses 
or on the ground. ‘The late Lord Lilford found several nests in the 
papyrus of the Anapo, near Syracuse. The eggs, usually 6 but 
sometimes 9 in number, are bluish-green or yellowish-white in 
ground-colour, closely freckled with olive-brown: measurements 
14 by rin. In its food, the Magpie is almost omnivorous ; the 
benefits it confers by devouring slugs, snails, worms, rats and 
mice, as well as the eggs of Ring-Doves, probably counter- 
balancing its destructiveness to the eggs and young of game and 
poultry. As showing its boldness, the late Lord Lilford has 
recorded (Zool. 1888, p. 184) an instance of fourteen or fifteen 
Magpies attacking a sore-backed donkey in snowy weather, while, 
after its death from natural causes, several were shot in the act of 
feeding upon its body. The note is a harsh chatter, kept up inces- 
santly as long as any obnoxious person or animal remains in its 
haunts; while the manner in which the bird will swoop at an 
exhausted fox must be a familiar sight to many sportsmen. 
The adult male has the head, neck, back and breast black, glossed 
with green and violet; rump grey; scapulars and belly white; 
secondaries black, with violet lustre ; primaries black, glossed with 
green, and having an elongated patch of white on their inner webs ; 
tail black, iridescent with greenish-bronze; bill, legs and feet 
black. Average length 18 in., of which the longest tail-feathers 
sometimes measure 11 in.; wing 7°75 in. The female is slightly 
smaller and less brilliant in plumage, and has a shorter tail ; while 
the feathers of the young have comparatively little sheen. 
