52 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



extemporised larder on such occasions was to incur his most vehement indignation. 

 He would fly at the intruder, attacking him fiercely with beak and claws, all the 

 time giving utterance to a torrent of " chatteration," which, to polite ears, would 

 probably not bear free translation. With a captured sparrow or any other trophy 

 of his bow and spear, these pugilistic manifestations were all in the grimmest earnest. 

 The bird, however, was brimful of fun, and nothing pleased him more on other 

 occasions than a mock battle on the same lines, with as much noise, but as it were 

 buttoned foils, over say a piece of rag or an empty banana skin, which, pushing 

 out or snatching away from between his cage bars, he would dare the writer to steal 

 from his clutches. In other ways this bird was most gentle and tractable with his 

 owner. Among the little tricks he indulged in, he would lie on his back in his cage 

 stiff and rigid as though he were dead, allowing himself to be picked up and swung 

 to and fro by his legs, as though on a pendulum, without moving a muscle. This 

 little trick was acquired by him so easily and in so natural a manner that it favours 

 the suspicion that it represented a hereditary, instinctive habit occasionally resorted 

 to by these birds as a stratagem wherewith to lie in wait for and capture the birds 

 and other small animals upon which they naturally prey. The author is indeed 

 inclined to believe that the sparrows this bird captured in the garden were taken 

 by some such stratagem, for, his wing being cut, he would scarcely have caught 

 one of these alert birds on even terms. He was, however, never seen in the act. 



As with many birds and other creatures capable of forming strong attachments, 

 jealousy was with this Shrike a ruling passion, and proved his ruin. With the 

 Podargi, through uninterrupted early association, he was on the best of terms. In 

 an unlucky hour, however, the writer consented to take temporary charge of a 

 neighbour's Piping Crow, the so-called Australian Magpie, Gymnorhina tibicens. With 

 the arrival of that Magpie the Butcher-bird's peace of mind received a shock, though 

 unrecognised at the time, from which it never recovered. No sooner did he 

 commence a bar of his favourite air than the Magpie would at once overpower it 

 with a louder and, for the occasion, harsher note, and this unfriendly stratagem, 

 continually repeated, had the effect, in the long run, of entirely silencing his song. 

 Further than this, the Butcher-bird now began to mope, and lost his appetite and 

 more winning ways. The recognised cause of his discomfiture was removed, but 

 unfortunately too late. All attempts to resuscitate his health proved fruitless, and, 

 affectionately responding to our caresses to the >last, he peacefully passed away. 

 Surely, as the elder Agassiz has previously suggested, there will be a resurrection 



