78 Birds I Have Kept. 



history is yet found recorded in the name of more than one 

 country inn. 



The breeding time of the Magpie commences very early in 

 the spring, and Bishop Mant describes its mode and place of 

 building in the following lines: — 



"On turf -reared platform, intermixt. 

 With clay and cross-laid sticks betwixt, 

 'Mid hawthorn, fir, or elm-tree slung, 

 Is piled for the expected young, 

 A soft and neatly woven home; 

 Above of tangled thorns a dome, 

 Forms a sharp fence the nest about, 

 To keep all rash intruders out. 

 So, like a robber in his hold. 

 Or some marauding baron bold, 

 On coasted cliff in olden time. 

 They sit unblenched in state sublime. 

 And fortress intricately planned; 

 As if they felt that they whose hand 

 Is aimed at others, rightly deem 

 The hand of others aimed at them. 

 So there they dwell, man's dwelling nigh, 

 But not in man's society: 

 Arabian-Uke : and little share 

 His lore, nor for his hatred care." 



I have often heard my father relate that when he was a 

 boy, it used to he the custom, in Ireland, to place a cock- 

 egg, that is to say a long narrow egg, of the game-fowl, 

 painted to resemble those of the Magpie, into a nest of these 

 birds; and, as the Magpie incubates a fortnight only, and the 

 fowl three weeks, the eggs of the unconscious foster-mother 

 were pricked with a fine needle to prevent them hatching, or 

 the fowl's egg was introduced into the pie's nest after its 

 own mother had sat upon it for a week: though the former 

 plan, he said, was the one he had always seen pursued. Of 

 course, when the young game-cock was hatched, it was re- 

 moved from the nest and brought up by hand indoors. 



In reply to my query as to what good the cook was sup- 



