The Black-billed Magpie 



508 (16.00-20.00), of which tail, av. 265 (8.00-12.00); wing 200 (7.85); bill (exposed 

 culmen) 35 (1.35); tarsus 47 (1.85). 



Recognition Marks. — Black and white plumage with long tail unmistakable, 

 bill black as distinguished from P. nuttalli. 



Nesting. — Nest: Normally a large sphere of interlaced sticks, "as big as a bushel 

 basket," placed 5 to 40 feet high in willow, aspen, grease-wood or pine. The nest 

 proper is a contained hemisphere of mud 8 to 10 inches across inside, and with walls 

 1 to 2 inches in thickness, carefully lined for half its depth with twigs surmounted by a 

 mat of fine rootlets. Eggs: 7 or 8, rarely 10, pale grayish green, quite uniformly freckled 

 and spotted with olive-green or olive-brown. Occasionally spots nearly confluent in 

 heavy ring about larger end, in which case remainder of egg likely to be less heavily 

 marked than usual. Shape variable, rounded ovate to elongate ovate. Av. size, 

 32.5 x 22.9 (1.28 x .90); index 70.3. Seaso?i: March 20-May 1; one brood. 



Range of Pica pica. — Europe, the most of Asia, and North America south to 

 Arizona and New Mexico. 



Range of P. p. hudsonia. — Resident in the western United States (except the 

 Pacific Coast district), and interiorly in the British Provinces; from central New 

 Mexico and western Texas north to central Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, 

 and northwestward to the middle Yukon and the eastern Aleutian Islands: casually, 

 eastward in the North Central States to Ontario and the Hudson Bay region. 



Range in California. — Common resident in Upper Sonoran and Transition 

 zones, northeast of the Sierran divide; less commonly east of the Sierras as far south 

 as Independence in Inyo County, and (formerly at least) west along the northern 

 border of the State to Shasta Valley. 



Authorities. — Newberry, Rept. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. vi., pt. iv., 1857, p. 84; 

 Henshaw, Rept. Orn. Wheeler Survey, 1879, pp. 306-307 (nesting habits); Bendire, 

 Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 349-353, (habits, nests and eggs); Fisher, 

 W. K., Condor, vol. iv., 1902, pp. 6, 11 (habits); Ray, Auk, vol. xx., 1903, p. 185 (nest- 

 ing). 



HERE IS another of those rascals in feathers who keep one alter- 

 nately grumbling and admiring. As an abstract proposition one would 

 not stake a sou marquee on the virtue of a Magpie; but taken in the 

 concrete, with a sly wink and a saucy tilt of the tail, one will rise to his 

 feet, excitedly shouting, "Go it, Jackity, " and place all his earnings 

 on this pie-bald steed in the race for avian honors. It is impossible to 

 exaggerate this curious contradiction in Magpie nature, and in our 

 resulting attitude towards it. It is much the same with the mischievous 

 small boy. He has surpassed the bounds of legitimate naughtiness, 

 and we take him on the parental knee for well-deserved correction. 

 But the saucy culprit manages to steal a roguish glance at us, — a glance 

 which challenges the remembrance of our own boyish pranks, and bids 

 us ask what difference it will make twenty years after; and it is all off with 

 discipline for that occasion. 



The Magpie is indisputably a wretch, a miscreant, a cunning thief, 

 a heartless marauder, a brigand bold — Oh, call him what you will! But, 

 withal, he is such a picturesque villain, that as often as you are stirred 



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