too formidable an assailant. She lays six or seven eggs, bluish-white, spotted with greenish-brown.

The food of the magpie is various. "No animal food," says Yarrell, "comes amiss to its carnivorous appetite. Young poultry, eggs, young lambs, and even weakly sheep it will attempt to destroy, by first plucking out their eyes" (I wonder whether it does this in Norway). "The young of hares, rabbits, and feathered game share the same fate; fish, carrion, insects, and fruit; and, lastly, grain, when nothing else can be got.'

وو

Magpies seem to continue in pairs all the year round, but, in well-wooded countries, where they are abundant, they have been sometimes observed to assemble in considerable flocks, previously to their retiring into the woods to roost. I never remember having seen more than a dozen together, but there are records of twenty or thirty, and one gentleman writes (in the "Zoologist" for 1862) that he once saw in this country a flock of several hundreds.

The geographical range of the magpie is extensive. It was unknown in Ireland in the time of Queen Elizabeth (driven thence,

perhaps, with other noxious creatures, by St. Patrick?) but it is found all over Europe; in the more temperate regions of Asia, as far as China and Japan, and also in most of the United States of America, and as far north as Kamtschatka.

MUCH has been written and said (it is easy to speak or to write of what nobody knows much about) of the difference between instinct and reason. In these dissertations the subject has generally been the relative intellectual gifts of men and other animals. But it must not be

forgotten that the inferior animals not only approach us in intellect, but also in the affections and passions, and in the exercise of a will. And in different families of animals we discern peculiarities of disposition, just as we do among men. In birds, for instance, how different the disposition of doves, about which I am now about to speak, and that of the magpie, which was the subject of my last paper! In the latter we see audacity, cunning, and the very spirit of mischief; while, in the former, gentleness, innocence, connubial fidelity and affection, have been proverbial since doves were first heard of.

We have four British species of dove, or pigeon, the turtle dove, the ring dove, the stock dove, and the rock dove. The first of these is only a summer visitant, arriving about the end of April, and leaving about the end of August; the others stay with us all the year. They are easily separated from each other. The ring dove (wood-pigeon, cushat, or queest) is the commonest, and much the largest of the four, conspicuous by its white feathers forming the portion of a ring on the sides of its neck. The stock dove, so called from its building in the stocks of trees, is

smaller, and without the ring. The rock dove is most like the stock dove, but is rather smaller, and is distinguished from that species by an extra black bar across the wings, and a pure white patch on the lower part of the back. The turtle dove is the smallest, and has four rows of black feathers tipped with white on the sides of the neck.

They may also be distinguished by their different notes and habits. The ring dove, rock dove, and turtle dove all coo; but the stock dove's note is quite another thing,described by Yarrell as "a hollow rumbling," and by Mr. Blyth as "a disagreeable grunt." Then, in habits, the rock dove is the only one that does not frequent woods; indeed, it is very rarely that it settles in a tree, but it is always found among rocks and caves, in the holes of which it makes its nest. Of the other species, the ring and turtle doves make a thin platform-nest of twigs among the boughs of trees, while the stock dove again vindicates its individuality by laying its eggs, generally without any attempt at a nest, in the holes of trees, and even in old rabbit burrows. Each species lays but two eggs, which are pure white; but some of them