WHITEWASHED VERMIN.
It is a welcome sign of the times—of the coining of a humaner wisdom—that the characters of all sorts of vermin are being whitewashed, even in quarters where sport is the first consideration. Far be it from me to condemn where game-preservers themselves acquit ; but, if only for the sake of the jay, observers and keepers must surely confess that the magpie does not belong to its class. Personally, though my garden peas have been ravaged by jays, I have never come upon one single example of its assassinations ; nor have I ever, in spite of search, been given a direct, authentic instance. On the other hand, I have known the magpie to ravage a poultry-yard ; in one particular instance to destroy every one of a brood of young turkeys, taking them piecemeal, one or two a day. And is it really true, as one critic asserts, that both are destroyers of mice and voles ? I very much doubt it.
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