222 
OMNIVOROUS BIRDS. 
tinues briskly moving his tail in different directions ; he is 
also very mischievous, and given to mocking and imitat- 
ing all he sees and hears. His common prate is like 
that of the Crow, but, besides his imitations of speech, he 
will sometimes counterfeit the lowing of the calf, the 
bleating of the goat, the sheep, and even the flagelet of 
the shepherd. One has been heard to imitate the flour- 
ish of a trumpet ; and Willughby saw several that could 
pronounce whole phrases. 
Like the Crow, the Pie has the habit of stealing and 
hiding provisions or pieces of money, which it per- 
forms with so much art, that they are often difficult to be 
found. It is pretended by hunters, that the Pie has a 
knowledge of arithmetic up to 5, so that when from 2 to 
that number of men entered a hut near the nest, it would 
not venture into it, while 2, 3, or 4 of the 5 came out, and 
only lost count when the experiment was made with 6. 
Cunning and precaution indeed prevail in all the ac- 
tions of the Pie, and are in nothing more evident than in 
the construction of his nest, which is situated either in a 
large tree, or a high and close bush on the edge of the 
forest or the orchard, and often in the tall hedge-row near 
the cottage. They both unite in the necessary labor, and 
begin by fortifying it externally with flexible twigs, fil- 
ling in towards the bottom pieces of turf and clay ; it is 
then wholly covered with a canopy or defence formed 
with small thorny branches, well interlaced together, and 
leaving an entrance only in the best defended and least 
accessible side. Internally the nest is covered with a 
thick layer of well-wrought clay ; this is then lined with a 
mass of pliable root fibres neatly interlaced together, which 
is in reality the true nest or bed for the tender young, 
and is only about 6 inches in diameter, while the whole of 
the defensive outworks give a diameter of at least 2 feet 
