_Source_.--I have built up the “Magpie's Nest” from two nidification
myths, as a German professor would call them, in the Rev. Mr.
Swainson's _Folk-Lore of British Birds_, pp. 80 and 166. I have received
instruction about the relative values of nests from a little friend of
mine named Katie, who knows all about it. If there is any mistake in
the order of neatness in the various birds' nests, I must have learnt my
lesson badly.
_Remarks_.--English popular tradition is curiously at variance about the
magpie's nidificatory powers, for another legend given by Mr. Swainson
represents her as refusing to be instructed by the birds and that is why
she does _not_ make a good nest.