CONSPICUOUSLY BLACK AND WHITE 385 



red calico gowns, I was forced to conclude that in some 

 way the wise old birds associated that color with perse- 

 cution by the children. It seems that the latter had 

 played the old cross-string trick with red flannel, which 

 had been promptly seized again and again by the birds, 

 greatly to the delight of the tricksters, to whom the 

 temptation to snare by this means became too great to 

 be resisted. The feathered playmates learned to shun 

 both the color and the children. 



The nest in the oak tree was very bulky, and bore 

 evidence of having been used for several broods. On or 

 in a platform of sticks was a bowl of mud, lined with 

 cattle hair and roofed with a dome-shaped mass of sticks. 

 On opposite sides were entrance and exit, and through 

 the former the tail of the brooding bird usually extended 

 when she was on the nest. For eighteen days her beady, 

 black eyes could be seen at the exit, for scarcely ever 

 was she absent, except when she went down to bathe, 

 which was always once and sometimes twice a day. 

 The male fed her devotedly on a great variety of dainties, 

 — crayfish, dead minnows, young squirrels, small snakes 

 or lizards, big black crickets, and, alas ! eggs and young 

 of swallows. The latter were nesting in numbers in 

 hollow piles of an abandoned pier near by, and wher- 

 ever the opening was large enough the Magpie helped 

 himself. Young chickens were also his victims. 



On the day the young Magpies emerged from their 

 shells, the mother joined her mate in stealthy journeys 

 to and from the nest. Silently they slipped through the 

 trees, but at the doorway of their home never failed to 



25 



