THE MAGPIE. 
337 
attacked the wooden bars of the cage and broke some of them, but in 
places so scattered, that in no one place did he succeed in making a 
breach large enough for his exit. He pined very much at the confine- 
ment, and the beauty of his plumage was much deteriorated, so that I 
at length began to let him fly about : his delight on these occasions 
was excessive and often laughably exhibited; but his distress when 
again seized on, to be returned to his cage, was at least equally strongly 
expressed. He used to screech long and loudly, and resist with beak 
and talon ; hence he soon began, when liberated, to fly straight off and 
remain away for several hours. In one of these rambles, a woman re- 
turning from Cork, was astonished to see him stand so tamely on the 
public road beside a small pond at which he occasionally drank ; she 
came near him, and held out a herring towards him, which he very thank- 
fully began to eat, when she secured him, cut one of his wings, and on 
reaching her home put him among some poultry, who beat him most 
unmercifully. It was four or five days before I was able to discover his 
prison, the woman living three or four miles olf ; and when I did, and 
had paid a few shillings for his ransom, he came home in most piteous 
plight; his spirit was quite broken, his plumage much injured and dingy, 
and except for the well-known ‘ Jack,’ and one or two other words, 
chiefly Irish, which he pronounced, I should have doubted or disbelieved 
his identity. I however pulled the feathers off his wings (which were 
mere stumps on one side), and by care he was beginning to recover his 
vivacity ; when, attempting to drink at a barrel, in which, when he could 
fly, he was in the habit of splashing, he fell in, and was drowned before 
his danger was discovered. I never felt so bereaved as upon the death 
of poor * Jack.’ ” 
On one occasion in my young days, a schoolfellow about four- 
teen years of age, who had not before been at any dramatic repre- 
sentation, was present at the performance of f The Maid and the 
Magpie/ in the Belfast theatre. On seeing that the woman was 
about to be executed for the theft committed by the bird, he gal- 
lantly roared out at the top of his voice, from the pit, that she was 
innocent, for he had seen the magpie steal the spoons. I well re- 
member the laugh of the school being turned against him on the 
following morning. 
This species rarely exhibits variety in its plumage : a white one 
VOL. i. 
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