[Illustration: _Taken in Yakima County._ _Photo by the Author._ MAGPIE’S NEST FROM ABOVE. WITH CANOPY REMOVED. SAME NEST AS IN ILLUSTRATION ON PAGE 24.] Nor is such a connoisseur of eggs likely to overlook the opportunities afforded by a poultry yard. He becomes an adept at purloining eggs, and can make off with his booty with astonishing ease. One early morning, seeing a Magpie fly over the corral with something large and white in his bill, and believing that he had alighted not far beyond, I followed quickly and frightened him from a large hen’s egg, which bore externally the marks of the bird’s bill, but which was unpierced. Of course the only remedy for such a habit is the shot-gun. To say that Magpies are garrulous would be as trite as to say hens cackle, and the adjective could not be better defined than “talking like a Magpie.” The Magpie is the symbol of loquacity. The very type in which this is printed is small _pica_; that is small _Magpie_. Much of this bird’s conversation is undoubtedly unfit for print, but it has always the merit of vivacity. A party of Magpies will keep up a running commentary on current events, now facetious, now vehement, as they move about; while a comparative cessation of the racket means, as likely as not, that some favorite raconteur is holding forth, and that there will be an explosion of riotous laughter when his tale is done. The pie, like Nero, aspires to song; but no sycophant will be found to praise him, for he intersperses his more tuneful musings with chacks and barks and harsh interjections which betray a disordered taste. In modulation and quality, however, the notes sometimes verge upon the human; and it is well known that Magpies can be instructed until they acquire a handsome repertoire of speech.