THE MAGPIE. 
237 
birds, where the brilliant plumage obtains before 
the first moulting. 
The sight of a magpie always gives me pleasure; 
its long tail, and its distinct markings of white 
and black, having a beautiful effect as it darts 
through the air. You may know this bird at a 
very great distance, either on the ground, or in a 
tree, by the frequent and brisk movement of its 
tail ; always up and down, never sideways. 
The magpie seems to have found out that it has 
at least one friend left in our part of the country. 
Last year I had thirty-four nests, all of which 
ushered their young into the world at large; 
making, on an average of five to the nest, including 
the parent birds, 238 individuals ; an increase quite 
sufficient, one would think, to supply all the wise 
men of the county with any quantity of omens. 
The name of wise man, in Yorkshire, is always 
given to one who professes to deal in the black art. 
Even well-educated people of the nineteenth cen- 
tury go to him, in order to recover things lost ; or 
to be put on the right scent, if a cow, or horse, or 
pig, or relative, be missing. 
Magpies are social, though not gregarious in the 
strictest sense of the word. In places where they 
are beyond the reach of molestation, you may see 
them in little parties of fifteen or twenty together, 
flitting from tree to tree in noisy conversation. 
Sometimes they will rise to a great height in the 
air, passing through it with a velocity which seems 
hitherto to have escaped the notice of naturalists. 
Like all other birds in a wild state, magpies. 
