54 A THORN-TREE NEST. 



silent. I have seen him, once or twice, flirt his 

 half-opened tail and jerk his wings, but he 

 rarely showed even so much impatience or rest- 

 lessness. He sat on the fence and regarded 

 me, or he drove away an intrusive neighbor, 

 with the same calm and serious air with which 

 he did everything. I have heard of pranks and 

 fantastic performances, of strange, uncouth, and 

 absurd cries, and of course it is impossible to 

 say what vagaries he might have indulged in 

 if he had thought himself unobserved, but in 

 many hours and days of close study of this bird 

 I saw nothing of the kind. The only utterance 

 I heard from him, excepting his song, of which 

 I shall speak presently, was a rattling cry with 

 which he pursued an intruder, and a soft, coax- 

 ing " yeap " when he came to the nest and 

 found his mate absent. 



One of the most prominent traits of this bird, 

 as we find him depicted in the books and the 

 popular writings, is his quarrelsome and cruel 

 disposition ; and " brigand," " assassin," "mur- 

 derer," and " butcher " are names commonly 

 applied to him. 



I watched the shrike several hours daily for 

 weeks, and from the first I was every moment 

 on the alert for the slightest manifestation of 

 these characteristics ; and what did I find out? 

 First as to his quarrelsome disposition, his 



