220 
OMNIVOROUS BIRDS. 
near 70 men, attended by constant hunters, never met 
with a single Pie, nor were any appearances of their nests 
any where visible. 1100 miles up the Arkansa, and 
more than 1000 up Red River, countries which I 
visited in summer never presented a specimen of this 
otherwise familiar and roving bird. The season of incu- 
bation with the American Pies, so different from their 
familiar habits in the old continent, is passed, no doubt, 
in the wooded recesses of the Rocky Mountains, which 
abound with berries and acorns, and with small birds and 
their eggs. They are known to make so great a destruc- 
tion among the eggs of Grous, Pheasants, Partridges, and 
even among young chickens, in many parts of Europe, as 
to be proscribed by law, and destroyed for the premium 
justly set on their heads. The absence of food and shelter 
for their nests in summer, suitable for the Magpie, on the 
vast prairies of the Arkansas and Missouri, particularly 
toward the sandy deserts at the base of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, will probably continue as a perpetual barrier to the 
eastern migrations of this mischievous species, whose means 
of flight and travelling are still more circumscibed than 
those of the common Crow. They consequently experience 
annually, in the terrible vicissitudes of climate incident 
to the countries they inhabit, like the Esquimaux of the 
arctic regions, either a feast or a famine, and are rendered 
so bold and voracious by want, that in the vicinity of 
the northern Andes, towards New Mexico, Colonel Pike 
was visited by them in the month of December, in lati- 
tude 41°, while the thermometer was at the dreadful line 
of 17° below zero, on the scale of Reaumur. They now 
assembled round the miserable party in great numbers for 
the purpose of picking the sore backs of their perishing 
horses, and, like the Vulture of Prometheus, they did not 
await the death of the subjects they tormented, but fed 
