ake by the fresh-water streams,
at once strangled by its excess of salt, and their bodies washed up on
the shore. What would become of the human residents if that animal
deposit were left for the fierce sun to dispose of, may perhaps be
imagined. The gull should, indeed, be a sacred bird in Utah.

What drew us first to the pasture--which we came to at last--was our
search for a magpie's nest. The home of this knowing fellow is the Rocky
Mountain region, and, naturally, he was the first bird we thought of
looking for. There would be no difficulty in finding nests, we thought,
for we came upon magpies everywhere in our walks. Now one alighted on a
fence-post a few yards ahead of us, earnestly regarding our approach,
tilting upward his long, expressive tail, the black of his plumage
shining with brilliant blue reflections, and the white fairly dazzling
the eyes. Again we caught glimpses of two or three of the beautiful
birds walking about on the ground, holding their precious tails well up
from the earth, and gleaning industriously the insect life of the horse
pasture. At one moment we were saluted from the top of a tall tree, or
shrieked at by one passing over our heads, looking like an immense
dragonfly against the sky. Magpie voices were heard from morning till
night; strange, loud calls of "mag! mag!" were ever in our ears. "Oh,
yes," we had said, "we must surely go out some morning and find a nest."

First we inquired. Everybody knew where they built, in oak-brush or in
apple-trees, but not a boy in that village knew where there was a nest.
Oh, no, not one! A man confessed to the guilty secret, and, directed by
him, we took a long walk through the village with its queer little
houses, many of them having the two front doors which tell the tale of
Mormondom within; up the long sidewalk, with a beautiful bounding
mountain brook running down the gutter, as if it were a tame irrigating
ditch, to a big gate in a "combination fence." What this latter might be
we had wondered, but relied upon knowing it when we saw it,--and we did:
it was a fence of laths held together by wires woven between them, and
we recognized the fitness of the name instantly. Then on through the
big gate, down a long lane where we ran the gauntlet of the family cows;
over or under bars, where awaited us a tribe of colts with their anxious
mammas; and at last to the tree and the nest. There our guide met us and
climbed up to explore. Alas! the nest rob