MOTHER SHRIKE 75 



first impulse from some source, she was able to 

 exit too quickly to be stopped by even the kodak. 



I think I never see a pair of nesting shrikes 

 that I do not recall an experience with them of 

 earlier days. A pair — I think they were white- 

 rumps, but a shrike was a shrike in those days, 

 and there is a bare possibility that they may have 

 been the Northern species — nested in the trees 

 about the garden and we watched them for a sea- 

 son. This pair quarreled with everything in 

 sight ; they even baited the robins, and it was de- 

 cided by the owner of the garden — never again. 

 The next spring when they returned and began 

 to build, we immediately gave them a hint of fu- 

 ture relations by poking down the nest. The 

 owners looked on stolidly and then began a new 

 one. 



After two or three nests had been demolished, 

 it was decided that the shot-gun would be more 

 effective; so the next nest with Mrs. Shrike in 

 it was blown sky-high. We considered that one 

 such drastic lesson would end the matter, but we 

 did not know this shrike. In an hour he was 

 perched on the tip of a spruce, and singing! sing- 

 ing a musical medley, a continuous effort, that 

 while it suggested a borrowing from several 



