“ Proud and pert as is a Pie.” Chaucer.

THE common Indian Magpie (Dendrocitta rufa) is certainly not the equal in pride and pertness of the European bird which Chaucer knew. For one thing it has less to be proud of, being soberly costumed in cinnamon and silver- grey instead of snow-white and glossy black like Pica rustica at home. Nor does it come down on the ground and wagger about there ; its legs are very short, and restrict its movements to hopping on the very rare occasions when it does descend from the trees. Usually it keeps aloft, searching among the foliage for any small game that may present itself in the way of insects or young birds ; and though conspicuous in its slow dipping flight from tree to tree, it is perhaps more often heard than seen. Its ordi- nary notes are certainly not more melodious than those of the home Magpie, one native name, ‘ ‘ Handi-chancha well expressing one of them ; but it can produce some very pretty metallic sounds if it likes. Whether it can learn to talk I do not know ; the natives, at all events, do not seem to make a pet of it, although one may now and then see the young birds on sale in the Bazaars. They may be known at once by their resemblance to their parents, though they are much lighter in colour, being buff instead of cinnamon. Of the old birds both sexes are alike, as is the rule among the crow tribe. At first sight the long-tailed, short- winged, and short-legged Indian Pie looks very differ- ent from the well-proportioned crow, none of whose members are unduly developed ; but she has much the same charac- ter of cautious audacity, and, although not a “ galley- ranger ‘ ‘ like her black kindred, is very accommodating in appetite. Jerdon relates a case in which one used to daily visit a cage of small birds in a verandah, at first in order to eat the seed supplied to them ; soon, however, he passed from petty larceny to murder, and was ultimately executed.

No doubt Pies, even more than crows, act as a healthy check on the exuberant domesticity of Philip Sparrow, which would otherwise overflow in those arboreal colonies in which his soul delights in safer localities than Calcutta.

But Mag cannot be a very dangerous neighbour to most small birds, seeing that they flourish so well in our midst in spite of her presence and presumably not altogether disinterested enquiries into the progress of their home and family arrangements. She has no particular ill- wishers herself, for birds of the crow kind are seldom at- tacked by others, unless it be by the larger owls who steal upon them under cover of darkness ; but the king- crow, in exercise of his office of supervisor of all doubtful characters in the feathered world, has been seen to harry her, clinging to her tail and being thus towed along for some distance. Whatever be the cause, although our Indian Magpie favours thorny twigs for building with, she does not, like the European bird, construct a dome with them over her nest, but sticks to the usual corvine pattern of an open cup. In the matter of eggs, however, she boldly defies convention, for she will have them with the pale ground colour tinted either pink or green, and enrich- ed with spots varying in hue from bright red to dull brown.  In respect to refreshments, on the other hand, besides exhibiting the family readiness to take whatever comes to hand, she is a true crow in having as frugal a mind as John Gilpin’s wife, and in time of plenty will lay up stores for a rainy day. This I found out from the only specimen of the bird I ever kept, discovering that it had laid up bits of meat in various parts of its large cage soon ofter receiv- ing the ration.

To whatever cause we may ascribe the result, the common Indian Pie is a very successful bird, and extends its range nearly all over the Empire from Cashmere to Tenasserim ; and, although quite at home in the sweltering atmosphere of the plains, ascends the Himalayas up to 7,000 feet, and thrives particularly well there, hill specimens being of larger growth than those bred lower down. This is curious, for our cinnamon friend has a relative which is a thorough mountaineer, never living in the plains, though I have seen it as low down as Raj pore in the Boon. And this bird is smaller than the common one, although living under the same conditions in which its rival so adds to its stature. This hill Tree-pie (Dendrocitta kimalayensis) is not so handsome a bird as its more widely distribut- ed relative, its prevailing hue being a dark iron-grey.

Wherever our “wandering Pie” as it is called in some books goes in India, it will find poor relatives, much re- sembling itself in all but colour, which, for some reason or other, have failed to spread as Dendrocitta rufa has done. At present the problem defies solution ; but as the distribution of birds generally has been pretty well map- ped out by this time, I hope the day is not far distant when ornithologists will begin to try and find out the reasons for it why, for instance, one species of a genus should be able to live almost anywhere, as in the present case, while the others have bounds set to their wanderings.

The European Magpie, sometimes seen as a pet in Calcutta, where it has been imported from China, is another good case of a successful bird, for it is found all round the Northern Hemisphere, and is still extending its range, having invaded Ireland and become very common there even in human knowledge, though not by any means recently. Even in our Indian Empire it appears in Cashmere and Upper Burma, and the clan of Tree-pies may yet find in it a dangerous competitor, for a bird that is active both below and aloft has advantages which few possess.

A word seems needed for other exotic Magpies often seen in Calcutta as pets. These are the white-backed and black-backed Australian Magpies, better known in books, as Piping Crows (Gymnorhina leuconota and G. tibicen).  These are short- tailed pied birds, about the size of the com- mon house-crow, and are quite as much allied to the shrikes- as to the true crows, though they more closely resemble the latter in form and habits. They have and deserve a high reputation, for they are good and very free talkers, and their own natural note is a beautiful whistle, very different from the varied cacophony of the genuine Magpie and crow. It is not surprising, therefore, that they readily learn to whistle tunes, though in their case, as in our own, “a little knowledge” is objectionable. The London Zoo had one once which persistently whistled a line and a half of a song. With this, as the late Mr. A. Bartlett told me, he habitually saluted the morn, and got so annoying that he had to be banished from the precincts of the Superintendent’s dwelling to the Western Aviary. For, as the narrator of the episode said, he “used to lie in bed and sweat, waiting for him to begin !