270 
BIRD-LIFE. 
good fortune to win a mate; many a one is condemned 
to single blessedness. With them the males are more 
numerous than the females. It seems as though Nature 
sought to provide against disaster, in that the males 
exceed the females in number. The surplus males roam 
homeless about the country, ever ready to break a lance 
in honour of the “ fair sex,” possibly on the chance of 
having a widow to console. 
Observation has taught us, that in the case of a male 
bird being destroyed his loss is replaced in an incredibly 
short space of time. A pair of Magpies once wished to 
settle in a tall oak which over-shadowed our garden, and 
began to build their nest. Now, while my father was 
alive, this garden was a safe asylum for all harmless 
birds who sought refuge there, and had been, from time 
immemorial, strictly guarded by my father and by us 
brothers from all feathered rogues and vagabonds. It 
was evident that in a very short time these Magpies 
would soon harry and despoil all our pretty Warblers, 
and, on this account, it was impossible for us to hold oul 
to them the hand of good-fellowship and hospitality: so 
we erected a screen of boughs beneath the oak tree, 
under which, gun in hand, we laid wait for the inter¬ 
lopers. By seven in the morning we had shot the male 
bird. Scarcely two hours had elapsed before the widow 
changed her condition, and took unto herself another 
mate. An hour later and he was disposed of. By eleven 
o’clock, however, his place was re-filled. This last male 
would, in all probability, have shared the fate of his 
predecessors, had not the frightened female preferred 
emigrating with husband No. 3 to running any further 
risk. 
A correspondent of ours shot a Hen Harrier (Circus 
