238 



THE MAGPIE. 



become vociferous at the approach of night ; and 

 he who loves to watch the movements of animated 

 nature, may observe them, in small detached 

 companies, proceeding to their wonted roosting- 

 places, in some wood of spruce, pine, or larch, 

 which they seem to prefer to any other. There 

 they become valuable watchmen for the night. 

 Whoever enters the grove is sure to attract their 

 special notice ; and then their chattering is inces- 

 sant. Whenever I hear it during the night, or 

 even during the day (except towards nightfall), I 

 know that there is mischief on the stir. Three 

 years ago^ at eleven o'clock in broad day, I was at 

 the capture of one of the most expert and des- 

 perate marauders that ever scourged this part of 

 the country. He had annoyed me for a length of 

 time ; and was so exceedingly cunning, that, when 

 we went in pursuit of him, he always contrived to 

 escape^ either by squatting down in the thick cover 

 of the woods, or by taking himself off in time, 

 when he saw us approach. At last, he owed his 

 capture to the magpies. We were directed to the 

 place of his depredations by the incessant chatter- 

 ings of these birds in the tops of the trees, just 

 over the spot where he was working in his vocation. 

 He had hanged fourteen hares; and the ground 

 was so covered with brambles and brushwood, that, 

 when we surprised him, he told us that we never 

 should have found him, had it not been for the 

 cursed magpies. His name was Kirk. In the 

 course of the following summer, he set out on his 



