“From bough to bough the restless Magpie roves,
And chatters as he flies.” Gisborne.
This bird resembles the daw, except in the whiteness of the breast and wings, and the length of the tail. The black of the feathers is accompanied with a changing gloss of green and purple. It is a very loquacious creature, and can be taught to imitate the human voice as well as any of the feathered creation.
Plutarch relates a singular story of a Magpie belonging to a barber at Rome, which could imitate, to a wonderful extent, almost every noise that it heard. Some trumpets happened one day to be sounded before the shop; and for a day or two afterwards the Magpie was quite mute, and seemed pensive and melancholy. This surprised all who knew it; and they supposed the sound of the trumpets had so stunned the bird as to deprive it at the same time of voice and hearing. This, however, was not the case; for, says the writer, the bird had been all the time occupied in profound meditation, and was studying how to imitate the sound of the trumpets; accordingly, in the first attempt, it perfectly imitated all their repetitions, stops, and changes. This new lesson, however, made it entirely forget everything that it had learned before.
The Magpie feeds on everything; worms, insects, meat, cheese, bread, milk, and all kinds of seeds, and also on small birds, when they come in its way: the young of the blackbird and of the thrush, and even a strayed chicken, often fall a prey to its rapacity. It is fond of hiding pieces of money or wearing apparel, which it carries away by stealth, and with much dexterity, to its hole. Its cunning is also remarked in the manner of making its nest, which it covers all over with hawthorn branches, the thorns sticking outward; within, it is lined with fibrous roots, wool, and long grass, and then plastered all round with mud and clay. The canopy above is composed of the sharpest thorns, woven together in such a manner as to deny all entrance except at the door, which is just large enough to permit egress and regress to the owners. In this fortress the birds bring up their brood with security, safe from all attacks, but those of the climbing schoolboy, who often finds his torn and bloody hands too dear a price for the eggs or the young ones.
There are many superstitions respecting Magpies; and it is singular that in all the southern and middle districts of England, two Magpies together are thought to betoken luck; while in Lancashire, and other northern counties, they are thought to betoken misfortune. The chattering of Magpies was formerly supposed to foretell the arrival of strangers.
