Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/122

116 "There are a great many magpies and crows mingling with the pigeons, and evidently considering themselves just as respectable. Pigeons, crows, and magpies fill the belfries of many of the churches, but not of all, and nobody seems able to say why they make the distinction. Some of



the churches are fairly thronged with them, and they keep up a perpetual flutter around the roof from sunrise to sunset.

"There is a story that the magpies were driven out of Moscow by one of the priests under the following circumstances: The high-priest, or metropolitan, was about to lay the foundation of a new church, and when he reached the part of the ceremony where the mortar was to be placed on the stone, the golden trowel which had been brought for the occasion