286 
BIRD-LIFE. 
like these present characters which render them easy 
to recognise, and are thus well adapted for such 
observations. My father made a number of discoveries 
in connection with this subject. Only a few years 
ago the Magpie was very common in the neighbourhood 
of Benthendorf, yet now, from some unknown cause, 
this is not the case. We possessed at that time great 
facilities for watching the pairs, owing to each occupying 
a certain beat. A couple of these birds used to breed in a 
very thick fir tree in the centre of a neighbouring hamlet, 
and was easily distinguished by the female always biting 
her long tail-feathers short off, to a length of about three 
inches, during the breeding season; this she probably 
did, looking upon them as an encumbrance while sitting. 
By this stumpy tail she was easily distinguishable from 
all the other Magpies in the neighbourhood; and thus 
we were able to determine with certainty that they bred 
at the same place every year. Formerly we had several 
singular-looking female Carrion Crows among the pairs 
about us. A member of one of these pairs had been 
lamed by a gun-shot wound, and was, consequently, 
obliged to hop on one leg: this bird, with its mate, bred 
for years in the same copse, and almost, I may say, 
on the same tree. A friend of my father’s so completely 
tamed a pair of Great Tits which bred in his garden, 
that they would take a pumpkin-seed from the hollow of 
his hand, and not from his alone, hut even from that of any 
stranger. He had the pleasure of having his little friends 
about him, and observing their habits, for three con¬ 
secutive seasons. 
These, and similar facts, prove to us that those birds 
which pass the winter with us always reside within a 
prescribed circle ; and, inasmuch as we know that this is 
