Chap. XIY. 
UNPAIEED BIRDS. 
103 
to be paired for the season. In any district in which 
a species does not exist in large numbers, great assem- 
blages cannot, of course, be held, and the same species 
may have different habits in different countries. For 
instance, I have never met with any account of regular 
assemblages of black game in Scotland, yet these as- 
semblages are so well known in Germany and Scan- 
dinavia that they have special names. 
Unpaired Birds , — From the facts now given, we 
may conclude that with birds belonging to widely-dif- 
ferent groups their courtship is often a prolonged, deli- 
cate, and troublesome affair. There is even reason to 
suspect, improbable as this will at first appear, that 
some males and females of the same species, inhabiting 
the same district, do not always please each other and 
in consequence do not pair. Many accounts have been 
published of either the male or female of a pair having 
been shot, and "quickly replaced by another. This has 
been observed more frequently with the magpie than 
with any other bird, owing perhaps to its conspicuous 
appearance and nest. The illustrious Jenner states 
that in Wiltshire one of a pair was daily shot no less 
than seven times successively, ^^but all to no purpose, 
^'for the remaining magpie soon found another mate;’' 
and the last pair reared their young. A new partner 
is generally found on the succeeding day; but Mr. 
Thompson gives the case of one being replaced on the 
evening of the same day. Even after the eggs are 
hatched, if one of the old birds is destroyed a mate 
will often be found; this occurred after an interval 
of two days, in a case recently observed by one of 
Sir J. Lubbock’s keepers.^ The first and most obvious 
^ On magpies, Jenner, in ^ Phil. Transact.’ 1824, p. 21. Macgil- 
livray, ‘Hist. British Birds/ vol. i. p. 570. Thompson, in ‘ Annals and 
Mag. of Nat. Hist/ voL viii. 1842, p. 494. 
