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16 THE CONDOR Vol. XXIV 
of sheep attacked was about one in three hundred, and that those pasturing 
below the elevation of 2000 ft. are seldom disturbed.’’ When once fairly start- 
ed a flock of pies is capable of doing much worse damage than this. I still 
have a photograph of the 1912 hospital band at Winnecook which shows about 
15 rams all suffering simultaneously from injuries of this nature. As the total 
number of rams on this ranch at that time was certainly under 350, this gives 
a percentage of animals attacked of better than 4 percent. As a result several 
valuable rams were lost entirely in spite of all that could be done by means of 
remedial measures applied directly to the wounds, and protection from further 
magpie attacks, together with an active war of destruction against the birds. 
The latter failed to diminish the total number of pies very much, but must 
have been successful in eliminating most of the more guilty ones, for I have no 
record of much trouble of such virulent nature during the seasons following. 
There have been, however, a few scattered instances, now and then, for which 
1 believe there is some reason to think that certain individual birds were chiefly 
responsible. One bad case of a ram victimized by magpies occurred at Winne- 
cook during the past summer, and was made the subject of the accompanying 
photograph. The attack took place in the buck pasture as usual, and a serious 
wound had been opened over the right kidney before the animal’s condition 
was discovered. In this instance it was not too late to effect complete cure, 
however. 
Whether in earlier times magpies ever made a practice of preying in this 
manner upon wild quadrupeds is doubtful. No such ease has ever come to the 
notice of the present writer and as none of the ‘‘old timers’’ with whom the 
matter has been discussed seem to recall anything definite about stock losses 
from magpies in the early days, it seems reasonable to suppose that attacks on 
living ungulates have been undertaken only quite recently. This perhaps con- 
stitutes an explanation why this. habit is still more or less a sporadic one, and 
why some magpie individuals or colonies are so much more prone to practice 
it than others seem to be. The individual experience of any given bird is evi- 
dently an important consideration or even the ruling one, but there seems lit- 
tle doubt that the addiction is one easily acquired by almost any of them when 
circumstances favor it. 
The manner in which such a habit might be formed is not difficult to im- 
agine. In fact it might take place in any one of several readily occurring ways. 
As has already been mentioned magpies are commonly observed to frequent 
the vicinity of many of the larger domestic animals, frequently alighting on 
their backs and pecking about there. Also we have frequently noticed that 
they will gather about a weak sheep or young lamb unable to defend itself and 
peck at its eyes. Or, when there are cuts or sore places on the backs of ani- 
mals (in our local experience principally cows), a magpie is almost sure to 
alight on the victim and peck away at the exposed flesh. So it is all too easy 
to pass from this discovery to that of the shearers’ cuts on the sheep as already 
noted, or the tender brands on newly branded eattle. But from whatever 
point of vantage the signpost pointing the final descent down the path of de- 
pravity is all too plain, and the birds find the transition to making the initial 
wound themselves an easy one. ; , 
On this Same ranch not long since the cowboys reported two cases where 
the magpies in attacking freshly branded cattle penetrated well into the body 
