The Persecuted Magpie
Magpies will soon be exterminated in many parts of the country unless they receive special protection. Like sparrow-hawks, the tribe suffers collectively for the sins of the individual. The ordinary magpie is no more harmful to the interests of game than the ordinary rook. His beauty, certainly, is far more striking. But he has been given a bad name; and magpies are destroyed on every possible occasion. The keeper finds the magpie only too easy to destroy, in spite of the bird's wonderful keenness of eye and his wary ways.
Magpies go year after year to the same huge, domed nest. The birds may be trapped a hundred times more easily than sparrow-hawks; and they may be shot without any difficulty, so slow, laboured and straight is their flight. An imitation of their call lures them unsuspiciously to their doom. Add that the plumage is showy, and it is clear that the thoughtless keeper finds magpies easy targets.
They are in demand as cage-birds, and even if a keeper should reprieve a few lingering pairs, he is likely to complain of "they bird fanciers," who "won't let the birds bide."
Like all of its tribe, the magpie attacks the eye of its victims, whether alive or dead. His taste is for carrion, and this accounts for the ease with which he may be trapped. Here the magpies differ from the hawks, which are seldom to be caught by a dead bait, unless killed by themselves—as when they have been disturbed after a kill and return to an unfinished feast. In trapping for magpies, the keeper ties a rabbit's eye to the pan of his trap, which he covers carefully with moss so that only the eye is visible; then the magpie swoops down; unerringly, and with great force, he drives his bill into the eye, and the trap holds him fast.
While usually building in high trees, some descend to thick bushes, and from this has arisen a popular idea that there are two sorts of magpies—bush and tree. The idea is hard to shake; and it is argued that the bush magpie is the smaller of the two. The nest is always fortified with strong and ugly thorns; marauding crows or rooks would attack it at their peril. Careful as they are to protect their own nests, magpies have small respect for the sanctity of other bird homes; but though they are inveterate egg-stealers, a good word is sometimes heard for their usefulness in destroying slugs, rats, and field-mice.
