This historic pile is in marked contrast to one sighted in a willow on the banks of Crab Creek near Odessa. My attention was attracted to the spot by a scuffle, which took place between a Magpie and a pair of Kingbirds; and when I started to examine the nest, I was in honest doubt whether it might not belong to the Kingbirds. The foundation was of mud, but this came near constituting the outside of the nest instead of the inside. The action of the wind upon the willows had compressed the mud bowl to a boat-shaped receptacle wherein lay five brown beauties, unmistakable Magpies’ eggs. There was a copious lining of rootlets, and a light half-cover of thorn twigs; but the whole structure was not over a foot in diameter and scarcely that in depth. [Illustration: _Taken near Spokane._ _Photo by Fred S. Merrill._ YOUNG MAGPIE.] Magpies, like Blue Jays, are discreetly quiet in nesting time, and especially so if they have attempted to nest in the vicinity of a farmhouse. When driven to the hills by persecution they accept any shelter, and will nest in greasewood, sage-brush, or even on the ground. Arbors of clematis (_clematis ligusticifolia_) offer occasional concealment, but thornapples (_Cratægus columbianum_, etc.) afford the safest retreat. A Magpie snugly ensconced in a thornapple fortress may well bid defiance to any retributive agency short of man. Among several scores of nests I never saw one in a pine tree in the Yakima country, yet these are freely utilized in Chelan, Okanogan, and Spokane Counties. Indeed, in these latter localities there is a suspicion of dawning preference for the tree-tops and difficult climbs. On the Columbia River I once found a family of Magpies occupying the basement of a huge Osprey’s nest, and had reason to believe that the thrifty pies made efficient, if unwelcome, janitors. Young Magpies are unsightly when hatched,—“worse than naked,” and repulsive to a degree equaled only by young Cormorants. Hideous as they unquestionably are, the devoted parents declare them angels, and are ready to back their opinions with most raucous vociferations. With the possible exception of Herons, who are plebes anyhow, Magpies are the most abusive and profane of birds. When a nest of young birds is threatened, they not only express such reasonable anxiety as any parent might feel, but they denounce, upbraid, anathematize, and vilify the intruder, and decry his lineage from Adam down. They show the ingenuity of Orientals in inventing opprobrious epithets, and when these run dry, they fall to tearing at the leaves, the twigs, the branches, or even light on the ground and rip up the soil with their beaks, in the mad extremity of their rage.