THE MAGPIE. 13 



its legs are very short, and restrict its movements 

 to hopping on the very rare occasions when it doea 

 descend from the trees. Usually it keeps aloft, 

 searching among the foliage for any small-game that 

 may present itself in the way of insects or young 

 birds ; and though conspicuous in its slow dipping 

 flight from tree to tree, it is perhaps more often heard 

 than seen. Its ordinary notes are certainly not 

 more melodious than those of the home Magpie, one 

 native name, " Handi-chancha " well expressing 

 one of them ; but it can produce some very pretty 

 metaUic sounds if it likes. Whether it can learn to 

 talk I do not know ; the natives, at all events, do not 

 seem to make a pet of it, although one may now 

 and then see the young birds on sale in the Bazaars. 

 They may be known at once by their resemblance 

 to their parents, though they are much lighter in 

 colour, being bufE instead of cinnamon. Of the old 

 birds both sexes are alike, as is the rule among the crow 

 tribe. At first sight the long-tailed, short-winged, 

 and short-legged Indian Pie looks very different 

 from the weU-proportioned crow, none of whose 

 members are unduly developed ; but she has much 

 the same character of cautious audacity, and, although 

 not a " galley-ranger " like her black kindred, is very 

 accommodating in appetite. Jerdon relates a case 

 in which one used to daily visit a cage of small birds 



