14 THE CONDOR Vol. XXIV 
stance sheep. The occurrence was reported verbally a few months later to 
Drs. W. K. and A. K. Fisher, who stated that such behaviour on the part of 
these dashing denizens of the air was wholly new to their experience, and ac- 
cordingly urged that the observation be placed on record in one of the ornith- 
ological journals. However, in the press of other circumstances and likewise 
the expectation that further data on the subject would come to hand, such 
notes as I had were laid to one side. I have jotted down a few additional ob- 
servations from time to time since. The recent appearance of a very brief but 
valuable note on the subject by A. W. Schorger (Auk, vol. 38, 1921, pp. 276- 
277) impels me to add what information I can.while the interest aroused by 
Schorger’s note is still warm. The present paper covers observations made 
during a decade of summers spent at Winnecook, Wheatland County, Mon- 
tana. It doubtless fairly summarizes the actual experience of almost any eat- 
tle and sheep ranch in central Montana where the magpie is one of the most 
abundant and ubiquitous of birds, whether on the open prairie or among the 
woods and pastures of the river bottoms. 
Fig. 10. MAGPIE IN CHARACTERISTIC ATTITUDE ON BACK 
OF RAM IN PASTURE. PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY ELWYN 
H. DOLE AT WINNECOOK, MONTANA. 
The depredations committed by the saucy black and white beauties in 1912 
were of a very serious nature. It is the custom in many of the western ranches 
to bring the rams into a roomy bottom-land pasture after shearing, where they 
remain fenced in, usually without the constant care of a herder, through the 
summer. Magpies abound in just such localities as those generally chosen for 
the ‘“‘buek pasture’’, the isolation of which gives them a better opening for 
any deviltry to which they may be inclined than is afforded by the sheep bands 
out on the prairie with their herders always watching over them. Now ordi- 
narily the abundant wool of the range sheep is an ample protection against 
even so powerful a weapon as a magpie’s bill, but in July a Montana sheep has 
just been deprived of this padded armor by the June shearing and is as de- 
fenceless as a kitten. Not only that, but the chances are that a cut of the 
shears here or there opens up a tempting display of raw, juicy flesh,—just a 
nice little tidbit to bait a meat-loving magpie. During that summer a number 
of magpies began bothering the newly shorn rams, beginning, as I believe is 
usually the case, contrary to the experience of Schorger’s correspondent, on 
