526 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



This has been observed more frequently with the magpie 

 than with any other bird, owing, perhaps, to its conspicuous 

 appearance and nest. The illustrious Jenner states that in 

 Wiltshire one of a pair was daily shot no less than seven 

 times, successively, "but all to no purpose, for the remaining 

 magpie soon found another mate"; and the last pair reared 

 their young. A new partner is generally found on the 

 succeeding day; but Mr. Thompson gives the case of one 

 being replaced on the evening of the same day. Even after 

 the eggs are hatched, if one of the old birds is destroyed a 

 mate will often be. found; this occurred after an interval 

 of two days, in a case recently observed by one of Sir J. 

 Lubbock's keepers." The first and most obvious conjecture 

 is that male magpies must be much more numerous than 

 females; and that in the above cases, as well as in many 

 others which could be given, the males alone had been 

 killed. This apparently holds good in some instances, for 

 the gamekeepers in Delamere Forest assured Mr. Fox that 

 the magpies and carrion-crows which they formerly killed 

 in succession in large numbers near their nests, were all 

 males; and they accounted for this fact by the males being 

 easily killed while bringing food to the sitting females. 

 Macgillivray, however, gives, on tbe authority of an ex- 

 cellent observer, an instance of three magpies successively 

 killed on the same nest, which were all females; and an- 

 other case of six magpies successively killed while sitting 

 on the same eggs, which renders it probable that most of 

 them were females; though., as I hear from Mr. Fox, the 

 male will sit on the eggs when the female is killed. 



Sir J. Lubbock's gamekeeper has repeatedly shot, but 

 how often he could not say, one of a pair of jays {Q-arrulus 

 glandarius), and has never failed shortly afterward to find 

 the survivor rematched. Mr. Fox, Mr. F. Bond, and others 

 have shot one of a pair of carrion-crows {Corvus corone), but 



^ On magpies, Jenner, in "Phil. Transact.," 1824, p. 21. Macgillivray, 

 "Hist. British Birds," vol. i. p. 570. Thompson, in "Annals and Mag. of 

 Nat. Hist.," voL viu., 1842, p. 494. 



