328 
CORVIDAL 
THE MAGPIE. 
Pica caudata. 
Corvus pica, Linn. 
Has long been common throughout the island. 
Smith, in his History of the county of Cork, published in 1749, 
remarks, that it “ was not known in Ireland seventy years ago, 
but is now very common.” Butty, in his Natural History of 
Dublin, observes, that “ it is a foreigner, naturalized here since 
the latter end of King James the Seconds reign, and is said to 
have been driven hither by a strong wind," (!) Dean Swift thus 
alludes to it in his Journal to Stella: — “Pray observe the in- 
habitants about Wexford; they are old English; see what they 
have particular in their manners, name, and language. Magpies 
have been always there, and nowhere else in Ireland, till of late 
years," * To a commentary on this, by Mr. Ogilby, published in 
YarrelFs British Birds (vol. ii. p. Ill), the reader is referred. In 
the Irish Statutes, 17 Geo. II. ch. 10, a reward is offered for 
magpies, along with other “ four, and two-footed vermin." t 
? Derricke, who wrote his Image of Ireland, in Queen Elizabeth’s time, says — 
“No pies to pluck the thatch from house 
Are breed in Irishe grounde, 
But worse than pies, the same to burne 
A thousande maie be founde.” 
Letter xxvi. vol. ii. p. 309, 2nd edit. 
f The following notice of the magpie appears in the 1st volume of Tracts, printed 
for the Irish Archaeological Society. In “ Abrife Description of Ireland, made in this 
yeere 1589, by Robert Payne,” it is remarked — “ There is neither mol, pye, nor car- 
ren crow.” In a note to this, contributed by Dr. Aquilla Smith of Dublin, it is 
observed ; “ As to the magpie ( Pica caudata ), our author is probably correct, for 
Derricke, who wrote in 1581, in his Image of Ireland, says — [ — the four lines above 
quoted are introduced here]. ‘ Ireland,’ says Moryson, in 1617, ‘ hath neither singing 
nightingall, nor chattering pye , nor undermining moule.’ Itinerary, part iii. b. iii. 
p. 160. [The extract elsewhere given from Smith’s Cork appears here.] The 
earliest notice of this bird as indigenous in Ireland is in Keogh’s Zoologia Medicinalis 
Hibernica, Dublin, 8vo, 1739 : he merely mentions the c magpie or pianet, Hib . 
Maggidipye .’ This evidently Anglo-Irish word, for we have no name for it in the 
ancient Irish language, favours the opinion held by our best-informed naturalists, 
that this bird is of recent introduction into this country.” 
