THE MAGPIE.
(Píca rústica.)
This is an extraordinarily clever, sly, and calculating bird, which, although living mostly in the neighbourhood of man, never becomes confiding, though bold enough to steal a young bird off the nest, and make away with it. When a pig is killed, it lurks around for hours with other birds of the crow species, near the spot where the pig is singed and cut open; and at an opportune moment darts down, siezes something, and is instantly back on the roof or the hay rick.
In a hard winter it will come into the farmyard or the village, and filch whenever and whatever it can. It builds its nest, preferably, on a road where rows of acacia trees border the cornfields; a spot which offers a wide field for its activity: doing mischief by decimating the young birds; but on the other hand it destroys grubs and beetles, and in this way is useful. It does, however, considerable harm, and therefore its numbers should be lessened in my opinion.
It is well known that the Magpie steals any shining object it can find. Its call sounds like “Shakerack.” There is a saying in Hungary, where it is very numerous, that when the Magpie cries on the roof there are visitors coming.
Game-preservers have managed to destroy more Magpies than Jays in Great Britain, but the Magpie is still fairly numerous and the species is distributed widely throughout our country. In Ireland it is even increasing in numbers. The Magpie confers immense benefits by devouring slugs, snails, worms, rats and mice, and these ought surely to weigh against its depredations in the poultry yard, and where eggs and game are concerned.
A number of Magpies together have, under stress of hunger, been known to attack weakly animals, and the late Lord Lilford recorded an instance of fourteen or fifteen of these birds fastening on to a sore-backed donkey in very severe snowy weather, and after the death of this animal, from natural causes, several of the birds were shot as they fed on its body. But what will starving creatures not do if they can fill their empty stomachs? Their keen eyes also see when a fox is growing exhausted, and they will hover and swoop over it in a most suggestive manner.
In point of fact the Magpie robs poultry yards, taking eggs, chicks and young ducks, during the months of May and June especially; but these might be protected. Some fruit too he will steal; but let us consider that all the year round he feeds on the very worst enemies to agriculture, and that it feeds its young, generally six of these in each nest, on insects chiefly and later on rats, mice, etc. The short-tailed Vole or field mouse of which from time to time our country has a perfect plague “overwhelming the whole earth, in the marshes,” said one old chronicler, is especially sought for by the Magpie and these Field Voles have three or four litters in the year, litters of from four to eight young. One writer states his belief that the destruction of Kestrels and Magpies is the cause of the increase of Field Voles. The Rev. J. G. Wood considered that it more than compensated for the harm it did to game and poultry by its good offices in ridding the gardens and cultivated grounds of their varied foes, and Macgillivray gave the bird a good character on the whole. Our cattle are grateful for its services; like the Jackdaw it frees them often of the vermin which annoy them so persistently. The large White—or cabbage butterflies, it devours largely, and these feed on other crops beside cabbage, both the leaves and seed-pods of turnips for instance, horse-radish too and watercress. Enormous flights of these insects come to us from abroad from time to time.
It is of course a noisy chattering creature, and, as a child, I remember I had a perfect terror of a tame Magpie that ran after me, pecking at my heels. Its “tricks and manners” leave much to be desired, it must be owned, yet it is an ornament to the country side, and to meet more than one Magpie is considered to be a very lucky omen, that is, I believe, up to six. In Scandinavia it is the bird of good luck, par excellence, and its presence is much desired about the homestead.
Montgomery wrote:
“Magpie, thou too hast learned by rote to speak
Words without meaning through thy uncouth beak.”