CHAPTER XXIII 



The Loggerhead Shrike: Lanius Ludovicdanus 



IN FIELD TREES 



:. .^ , ' SHRIKES like open fields and 



sunlit distances. These settled 

 east of the Cabin, on the Stanley 

 farm, in a scrub apple-tree be- 

 neath which four fields cornered. 

 t Mr. Bob Burdette Black told me 

 of them. As he appears so fre- 

 quently in my bird-chronicles, a 

 few words concerning him are ap- 

 propriate. 



Bob has played with birds, 

 raised them by hand and be- 

 friended them ever since child- 

 hood. He has studied them in half a dozen different states, so 

 he knows them well. He was the manager of a large oil-lease 

 lying on the Wabash River where it had a strip of thicket on one 

 side and a heavy forest on the other. He held this position be- 

 cause of his love of the woods, for from Pennsylvania to Colorado 

 he is familiar with all outdoors. When the machinery of his 

 leases ran smoothly, Bob went out and searched the fields, river- 

 banks and woods for bird-nests. He located them in large num- 

 bers, then escorted me to them, often carrying heavy Cameras 

 and ladders. More than this, when I was crowded with field 



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