MAGPIE. 



313 



opening- is by no means apparent, though in some instances the twigs 

 may appear more loosely woven than in others ; but seldom so much 

 so, I think, as to permit a passage to the bird. 



There is considerable discrepancy in the account given by naturalists 

 of the haunts of the Magpie. " The tall tangled hedge-row," says 

 Mr. Knapp, " the fir-grove, or the old well-wooded enclosure, consti- 

 tutes its delight, as there alone its large dark nest has any chance of 

 escaping observation." 1 " It always," says Jennings, " builds a soli- 

 tary nest, either in a thorn-bush, or on some lofty elm, and sometimes 

 on an apple-tree. It does not often build very near dwelling-houses ; 

 but a remarkable exception to this has lately occurred in Somersetshire, 

 at Huntspill : a Magpie not only having built its nest on a tree a very 

 short distance from a dwelling-house, but occupying the same nest two 

 years successively." 2 



Wilson, on the other hand, speaking, I apprehend, of its habits in 

 Scotland as well as in America, says, " it generally selects a tall tree 

 adjoining the farm-house for its nest, which is placed amongst the 

 highest branches." Mr. Mudie says " it nestles in the tall hedge, or 

 in a thick tree, near the cottage. It is no bird of the wilderness." 3 



This agrees with my own observation ; for I have remarked the 

 Magpie to be no less partial to human neighbourhood than its cogener 

 the rook ; and so far from sequestering itself, — though it is certainly a 

 shy and wary bird, — I have seldom met with it except near farm- 

 houses. In the north, almost every farm has its denizen pair of 

 Magpies, which incubate in their hereditary nest on the old ash-tree, 

 year after year, and probably for century after century, precisely like a 

 hereditary colony of rooks. In the more closely-wooded districts of 

 the south, indeed, it does not so frequently build on the trees in the 

 farm-yard ; yet I observed in 1830, a Magpie's nest in such a locality, 

 on the very borders of Epping Forest, near Chigwell ; and another in a 

 clump of elms about a hundred yards from Syon-House, the seat of the 

 Duke of Northumberland. 



Goldsmith, who is unusually copious in his history of the Magpie, 

 gives it credit for extraordinary instinct or intelligence. " The nest," 

 he says, " is usually placed conspicuous enough, either in the middle of 

 some hawthorn-bush, or on the top of some high tree. The place, 

 however, is always found difficult of access ; for the tree pitched upon 

 usually grows in some thick hedge-row, fenced by brambles at the 



1 Journ. of a Naturalist. 3 British Naturalist, ii. 214. 



2 Ornithologia, p. 20, Note. See also Bloomfield's Remains, ii. 129, &c. 



