138 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 
birds is a ruffian, truly, yet with polish and a courage with- 
out bravado which commend him. Being an outlaw in «he 
avian kingdom, he can only maintain himself by adroit- 
ness and force, but has such singular impetuosity, prudence, 
and fortitude, that he is not only able to keep himself and 
his retainers in health and wealth and happiness, but to 
gratify his blood-thirsty love of revenge by killing number- 
less innocents without mercy. Thus he has struck terror 
to the heart of every feathered inhabitant of the January 
woods. Like Ceasar, he knows and joyously endures hun- 
ger and cold and thirst. Is it biting, freezing weather, and 
blinding snow? Little cares he; he can then the more 
easily surprise his benumbed prey. Is it a warm, sap-start- 
ing, inviting day? He is at the festival of the birds—a 
fatal intruder into many a happy circle. His favorite perch 
is the high rider of some lonely fence, where he quietly 
waits till a luckless field-mouse creeps out and he is able 
to pounce upon it; or an incautious sparrow or kinglet 
dashes past, unconscious of the watchful foe who seizes him 
like a flash of lightning. Having felled his quarry with a 
single blow, he returns to his fence-post and eats the brains 
—rarely more—or perhaps does not taste a single billful, 
but impales the body upon a thorn, or hangs it in an angle 
of the fence, as a butcher suspends his quarters of beef. It 
