THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



of my study door and was gazing out upon the white 

 landscape, when my son, who was passing by a 

 woven-wire fence, about fifty yards away, with a 

 piece of timber upon his shoulder, called out to me, 

 "See those birds." Two birds, one in hot pursuit 

 of the other, had struck the woven-wire fence at 

 his elbow, had struggled through the meshes, and 

 gone racing through the vineyard in my direction. 

 I saw them coming down between two rows of grape- 

 vines in desperate flight. I saw at a glance that it 

 was a shrike pursuing a junco or snowbird, and that 

 the assassin was gaining on his victim. As they got 

 opposite me and about forty yards below me, the 

 junco, finding its enemy dangerously near, turned 

 its course sharply to the right, crossing the line of 

 wires supporting the vines. 



Then just what happened, or rather just how the 

 deed was done, my eye was not quick enough to see, 

 but the shrike struck his victim down, probably 

 with his beak, and fell with it to the ground. I rushed 

 to the rescue as fast as possible, but before I could 

 reach the spot, the shrike had killed his victim, car- 

 ried it to the top of a grapevine, tightened his hold, 

 and was off down the hill toward a line of trees, with 

 its limp form hanging beneath him. There was the 

 imprint in the snow where the birds had fallen, but 

 not a feather or a drop of blood to tell of the tragedy 

 that had been enacted there. 



Later in the winter, while trimming the grape- 

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