Presently he came back again and the last T saw of the performance was when he waddied round the corner out of sight. Presumably he flew off elsewhere soon after this, for the noises ceased. Yesterday the performance closed by both the pie and the shi ving up almost straight for the window from which I was looking down at them. The magpie saw me and went on upward over the roof. The shrike did not see re, end perched on a dangling piece of creeper almost within reach. He sat there for a time and then flew off to join his mate in devising some new piece of mischief.
If it were possible for such empty-headed birds to be worried to death one might expect these magpies to be bordering on that condition but they do not seem to take this persecution amiss, Sometimes three or four of them raise a fearful chorus which -entirely drowns any other garden noises, and one finds that it is just their way of disapproving of bird-watching by our neighbours" black cat. One can perhaps excuse thet. One would like to feel that the magpies had enough self-respect to resist or chastise the impertinence of their small neighbours, and, while acquitting them of being in the wrong in this case, I still cherish a dislike for the magpie race. In fact the whole performance makes me think that the prize for good conduct must go to our humble friend the sparrow.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.