THE MAGPIE. 
331 
often so far gregarious as to roost in considerable numbers at 
particular groves, near their feeding-ground, to which they 
resort in straggling flocks : I have thus reckoned twenty-six 
on wing together, when the distance between the first and last, 
was like that of an ill-matched pack of hounds during the chace. 
November the 20th, 1838, was a dull, dark, true November day 
throughout, and so early as half-past two o’clock, p.m., I saw 
about twenty of these birds that had evidently retired to roost for 
the night. On being alarmed they flew from a fine old willow 
on the banks of the Lagan, and looked very beautiful as they 
rose together. 
Magpies are very generally persecuted with us on account of 
their evil propensities. One friend complains that his garden has 
suffered much from their depredations on cherries and other fruit; 
another, that the eggs of game, &c., are greatly destroyed by them: 
— their propensity for eggs is taken advantage of for their destruc- 
tion, and they become victims to the trap baited with those of our 
domestic fowl. Grain, too, they certainly consume, but their 
numbers are not anywhere so great as to do much injury to it. 
That they do considerable good, I have had positive evidence from 
an examination of the contents of their stomachs (supplied me by 
bird-preservers) at various times, but particularly in winter ; when 
almost every one contained insects (chiefly Coleojotera) , or the re- 
mains of mice and slugs, (the internal shell of these, constituting the 
genus Limacellus, Brard., only remaining), mixed with which occa- 
sionally appeared oats and other grain. In winter, the magpie, 
as well as others of the Corvidae, is of great service to the public, 
by resorting in numbers to such meadows as are manured with 
the offensive refuse of the slaughter-house, and feeding on the tit- 
bits.* On the 1st of Sept., 1847, I was interested in observing 
one of these handsome birds perched on a tall rowan or mountain- 
ash tree, close to Holywood House, picking off and eating the ripe 
scarlet berries, as eagerly as any of the thrush genus could have done. 
* Since writing my account of the magpie, I find that this and several other par- 
ticulars noticed are treated of by Mr. Waterton, in his Essays on Natural History. 
His description of the bird throughout is excellent. 
