142 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



unfrozen melody bringing back summer again." 

 Sings Thoreau : 



" His steady sails he never furls 



At any time o' year, 

 And perching now on winter's curls, 

 He whistles in his ear." 



But his voice is that of a savage, strident and dis- 

 agreeable. 



I have often wondered how this bird was kept in 

 check; in the struggle for existence it would appear 

 to have greatly the advantage of other birds. It 

 cannot, for instance, be beset with one tenth of the 

 dangers that threaten the robin, and yet apparently 

 there are a thousand robins to every shrike. It 

 builds a warm, compact nest in the mountains and 

 dense woods, and lays six eggs, which would indi- 

 cate a rapid increase. The pigeon lays but two eggs, 

 and is preyed upon by both man and beast, millions 

 of them meeting a murderous death every year; yet 

 always some part of the country is swarming with 

 untold numbers of them. 1 But the shrike is one of 

 our rarest birds. I myself seldom see more than 

 two each year, and before I became an observer of 

 birds I never saw any. 



In size the shrike is a little inferior to the blue 

 jay, with much the same form. If you see an un- 

 known bird about your orchard or fields in Novem- 

 ber or December of a bluish grayish complexion, 

 with dusky wings and tail that show markings of 

 white, flying rather heavily from point to point, or 



1 This is no longer the case. The passenger pigeon now seems 

 on the verge of extinction (1895). 



