40 A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. 



Dreadful discovery ! I must at once know all 

 about them ; whether they deserve the name and 

 the reputation. I flew to my books. 



"The character of the butcher-bird," says 

 Wilson, " is entitled to no common degree of re- 

 spect. His courage and intrepidity are beyond 

 every other bird of his size, and in affection 

 for his young he is surpassed by no other. He 

 attacks the largest hawk or eagle in their defense 

 with a resolution truly astonishing, so that all 

 of them respect him ; " and, further, " He is val- 

 ued in Carolina and Georgia for the destruction 

 of mice. He sits on the fence and watches the 

 stacks of rice, and darts upon them, also destroy- 

 ing grasshoppers and crickets." 



So said Wilson, but subsequent writers have 

 said terrible things about him : that he catches 

 small birds and impales them on thorns ; that he 

 delights in killing more than he can eat. Could 

 these things be true ? Where, then, was the 

 larder of this family ? Such a curious and won- 

 derful place I must see. I resolved to devote 

 myself to discovering the secrets of this innocent 

 looking family in gray. 



The nest where they had first seen the light 

 was in a low spruce-tree beside a constantly 

 used gate, not more than eight feet from the 

 ground, and across the road was a tree they 

 much frequented. Next to that, and overshad- 



