XXXVI. THE MAGPIE'S NEST.
Source.—I have built up the “Magpie's Nest” from two nidification myths, as a German professor would call them, in the Rev. Mr. Swainson's Folk-Lore of British Birds, pp. 80 and 166. I have received instruction about the relative values of nests from a little friend of mine named Katie, who knows all about it. If there is any mistake in the order of neatness in the various birds' nests, I must have learnt my lesson badly.
Remarks.—English popular tradition is curiously at variance about the magpie's nidificatory powers, for another legend given by Mr. Swainson represents her as refusing to be instructed by the birds and that is why she does not make a good nest.