to be saying words, but they were not the English kind that 
could be understood. People said that magpies could be 
taught to speak, and many of Mag’s sounds were like those 
_ which a little child uses when it begins to imitate its parents © 
but one could never feel positive that Mag used the English 
language. Still it was felt that he understood many of the 
things that were said, while his friend knew some of his 
thoughts, when he made particular cries. 
After Mag was a year old, he spent more and more 
time with the other Magpies, but would come to his owner | 
out in the fields or the deep ravines at her whistle when she 
saw his flock, or would visit the house when he was hungry. 
She had not clipped his wing feathers after the spring 
moult, and he would sail about her head like a living kite 
with his long tail streaming behind him before he lit on her 
hand or shoulder. 
He still seemed to care more for her than for any other 
member of the family at such times and seemed to try to 
tell her about his new free life in the trees with his friends. 
She could not understand his tones, but she knew his feel- 
ings; and that fall when the magpies flew south, or across. 
the mountains, and he went with them, she could not want 
him to stay, although she often since has missed her small 
_ black and white comrade. 
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