20 EVERYDAY BIRDS 
remain almost in the same spot for weeks 
together. 
In size and appearance he resembles the mock- 
ingbird. His colors are gray, black, and white, — 
his tail is long, and his bill is hooked like a 
hawk’s. 
He likes a perch from which he can see a good 
distance about him. A telegraph wire answers 
his purpose very well, but his commonest seat is 
the very tip of a tallish tree. If you look across 
a field in winter and descry a medium-sized bird 
swaying on the topmost twig of a lonesome tree, 
balancing himself by continual tiltings of his 
long tail, you may set him down as most likely 
a butcher-bird. 
His flight is generally not far from the ground, 
but as he draws near the tree in which he means 
to alight, he turns suddenly upward. It would 
be surprising to see him alight on one of the 
lower branches, or anywhere, indeed, except at 
the topmost point. 
Small birds are all at once scarce and silent 
when the shrike appears. Sometimes in his 
hunger he will attack a bird heavier than hin- 
self. I had once stopped to look at a flicker in a 
roadside apple-tree, when I suddenly noticed a 
butcher-bird not far off. At the same moment, 
as it seemed, the butcher-bird caught sight of the 
flicker, and made a swoop toward him. The 
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