The Black-billed Magpie 



even the ground. The nest is a neat ball of interlacing sticks set 

 about a hollow half-sphere of dried mud. The amount of labor expen- 

 ded upon one of these structures is prodigious. The greasewood 

 nest shown at the head of this article is three feet deep and two feet 

 through, and the component sticks are so firmly interwoven that no ordi- 

 nary agency, short of the human hand, can effect an entrance. The 

 bird enters through an obscure passage in one side, and, if surprised 

 upon the nest, has always a way of escape planned through the opposite 

 wall. The mud cup is carefully shaped with walls an inch or two in 

 thickness, a total breadth of eight or ten inches, and a like depth. In 

 the best construction this cavity is filled to a depth of three or four inches 

 with a loose mat of fine twigs of a uniform size. Upon this, in turn, is 

 placed a coiled mattress of fine, clean rootlets, the whole affording a very 

 sanitary arrangement. 



Magpies, like Blue Jays, are discreetly quiet in nesting time, and 

 especially so if they have attempted to nest in the vicinity of a farm- 

 house. Else, and save for the presence of man, the Magpie has little 

 to fear. His home is his castle in a very literal sense. 



Young Magpies are unsightly when hatched, — "worse than naked," 

 and repulsive to a degree equaled only by young Cormorants. Hideous 

 as they unquestionably are, the devoted parents declare them angels, 

 and are ready to back their opinions with most raucous vociferations. 

 With the possible exception of Herons, who are plebes anyhow, Magpies 

 are the most abusive and profane of birds. When a nest of young birds 

 is threatened, they not only express such reasonable anxiety as any parent 

 might feel, but they denounce, upbraid, anathematize, and vilify the 

 intruder, and decry his lineage from Adam down. They show the in- 

 genuity of Orientals in inventing opprobrious epithets, and when these 

 run dry, they fall to tearing at the leaves, the twigs, the branches, or 

 even light on the ground and rip up the soil with their beaks, in the mad 

 extremity of their rage. 



A pair with whom I experimented in Washington rather fell into 

 the humor of the thing. The Magpie is ever a wag, and these must 

 have known that repeated visits could mean no harm. Nevertheless, as 

 often as I rattled the nest from my favorite perch on the willow tree, the old 

 pies opened fresh vials of wrath and emptied their contents upon my 

 devoted head. When mere utterance became inadequate, the male 

 bird fell to hewing at the end of a broken branch in most eloquent 

 indignation. He wore this down four inches in the course of my 

 three visits. Once, when my attention was diverted, he took a sly 

 crack at my outstretched fingers, which were hastily withdrawn; and, 

 believe me, we both laughed. 



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