92 MAGPIE 
interest in the ornithology of Britain to abstain from the 
encouragement of any action (punishable also, by Manx 
law) which may accelerate that extinction in this perhaps 
the most easily accessible of its British haunts. 
PICA RUSTICA (Scopoli). MAGPIE. 
Manx, *Piannad, Pieanat (M. 8. D.); Pieannat (Cr.). (Cf.Se. 
Gaelic, Pithezd, etc.; Irish, Peghe, Pighead ; English, Pret, Pre- 
Anne, of which these are corruptions.) The species being of 
late introduction into the Gaelic-speaking parts of Britain, its 
then current English names were introduced with it. 
Bishop Wilson, in his History of the Isle of Man (1722), 
says: ‘It is not long since a person, more fanciful than 
prudent or kind to his country, brought in a breed of 
Magpies, which have increased incredibly, so as to become 
a nuisance.’* Where did these Magpies build? Or has 
the treelessness of the Isle of Man at that time been 
exaggerated 2? The Magpie has indeed found a favourite 
home in an isle where game preserving has not taken deep 
root, and is common all over the cultivated parts of the 
country, and in general comparatively familiar and unsus- 
picious. I have seen as many as forty gathered together 
for their nightly roost in a plantation above Laxey. 
The nests are placed in very varying situations, some- 
times in a tall tree, more rarely in a thick hedge of thorns 
(not a very common thing in Man), often in very small 
1 First appeared in Bishop Gibson’s second edition of Camden’s Britannia. 
Reprinted from Cruttwell’s edition of Bishop Wilson’s Works, 1797, by Manx 
Society, vol. xviii. p. 93. 
The introduction mentioned must apparently have taken place before 1687, in 
which year the Magpie appears with the ‘ Kyte,’ ‘Raven,’ and ‘Scar Crowe’ as 
species for whose destruction, as harmful to partridges, lambs, etc., a reward is 
to be paid. 
