328 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
the drama, nor did I see either of the two actually go tothe nest, 
though I could only explain their action by supposing it was 
their own. This morning I saw the same thing reversed, for a 
pair of Magpies, with an undoubted nest, kept attacking a Crow 
that insisted on settling in one of a row of trees—also tall and 
slender—in which it was placed. Both were equally persevering, 
the Crow, though often chased away, always returning, and 
settling generally in the last tree of the row, where he would be 
left alone sometimes for a minute or two, but before long one of 
the Magpies always flew at him, and put him to flight. The 
Crow defended itself, but not, it would seem, very successfully, 
and in the last attack upon him, made, with great spirit, in the 
air, a large black feather floated to the ground, which I made no 
doubt was his. Yet this did not drive him from the trees, and 
it was only on my approaching nearer that he finally left them. 
Thus we see that both the species look upon the approach of 
the other to within a moderate distance of their nest as an 
intrusion. 
May 2nd.—Walked out in the afternoon, and located another 
Crow’s nest in course of construction, a discovery to which I was 
led by observing the pertinacious attacks upon one of its joint 
owners by a Magpie in the neighbourhood of its own nest. The 
Crow was reaay to defend himself, but the Magpie was too quick — 
for him, and by constantly flying at him and pecking him in the 
air at last drove him out of the little plantation in which the 
drama was enacting. As soon as he took to flight he was joined 
by another, who carried a good-sized stick. As they went down 
amongst trees some way off, I naturally concluded that the nest 
was situated in one of these, and found what looked like the 
commencement of one. I sheltered myself at some distance, 
and waited for about half an hour, but to no purpose. Mean- 
while, however, the Crows had floated over these trees in the 
direction whence they had come, and, returning, I found the 
same bickering going on between them—or one of them—and 
the Magpie. A nest of the latter, from which the sitting bird 
went off tardily on my striking the tree, explained the matter as 
far as the Magpie was concerned, and I began to suspect the 
Crows of pillaging or designing to pillage this nest, to build their 
own, especially on their appearing again (for they had again 
