BIRDS THAT KEEP ORDER 131 



themselves, and no doubt his attacks often 

 keep them from snapping up some young and 

 more or less helpless bird of another kind. 

 The bird that does this is called, from this 

 habit, the king-crow ; it is a kind of shrike, 

 about as big as our starling, and black all over 

 from bill to tail. This tail is a very striking 

 part of the bird, for it is long and very much 

 forked ; and as the king-crow's favourite 

 perch is a telegraph-wire, it is a bird that 

 every one who notices live things at all knows 

 by sight. One curious thing about the bird's 

 forked tail is that one of the forks is generally 

 more or less worn away, which looks as if 

 the bird always turned round in one direction 

 when he left his wiry perch, and so rubbed 

 that side of the tail away ; but I never found 

 out if this really was the reason. The king- 

 crow feeds on insects, but when he is not 

 hunting these he finds time to chase and bully 

 the kites and crows, especially when his mate 

 is sitting on her nest high up in a tree. It is 

 funny to see the big clumsy birds flying away 

 in fear of this active black fly-catcher, but 

 they cannot very well do anything else. It is 

 as impossible for a big slow-flying bird to 



