fifii, and on any kind of animal fubftance it meets with, 
whether putrid or frefh ; it attacks young lambs and weakly 
fheep, the eyes of the latter it firfl: afTails, and like the hooded 
crow moftly fucceeds if the animal is incapable of rifmg ; it 
is very bold and daring, it will frequently alight on the backs 
of cattle to fearch for vermin. On the failure of other food 
it eats grain. 
To the fportfman it is a continual plague, as it flies 
from tree to tree, proclaiming to its companions the approach 
of danger ; if a fox, or any other wild animal pafles within its 
view, it follows it, and continues uttering its harfh chatter 
from time to time, and by this, will give fure information 
which path it may have taken j almoft all kinds of game take 
alarm on hearing its note, and will generally keep in fecurity 
till its noife has ceafed. 
Their neft is formed of fmall branches of the thorn, woven 
together with the thorns outwards, w liich is a good protection 
to the young ; the entrance is on the fide, and is only fufEci- 
ently large to permit a free paffage ; the bottom part of the 
neft is plaiftered with clay, into which it thrufts the coarfe 
ends of fibrous roots, and fometimes grafs, leaving the finer 
parts as a lining. They lay fix or feven eggs of a yellowifh 
white colour blotched with brown ; they lay very early in the 
fpring, and begin to build about the firft week in February. 
In Sufiex we have been fliewn two kinds of this bird, one 
called the Tree and the other the Bufh Pie, the former has a 
longer tail, and is of a wilder difpofition and not able to 
talk ; they are there efteemed as a diftincl fpecies : we conceive 
them to be merely varieties, perhsips only dilfering in fex or 
age, 
