308 TALKS WITH YOUNG OBSERVERS 



against the window, when suddenly a large bird 

 swooped down as if to dash himself against it; 

 but arresting himself when near the glass, he 

 hovered a moment, eying the birds, and then 

 flew to a near tree. 



The poor canaries were so frightened that 

 they fell from their perches and lay panting 

 upon the floor of their cage. 



No one had ever seen the bird before; what 

 was it? It was the shrike, who thought he 

 was sure of a dinner when he saw those cana- 

 ries. 



If you see, in late autumn or winter, a slim, 

 ashen-gray bird, in size a little less than the 

 robin, having white markings, flying heavily 

 from point to point, and always alighting on the 

 topmost branch of a tree, you may know it is 

 the shrike. 



He is very nearly the size and color of the 

 mocking-bird, but with flight and manners en- 

 tirely difl'erent. There is some music in his 

 soul, though his murderous beak nearly spoils it 

 in giving it forth. 



One winter morning, just at sunrise, as I was 

 walking along the streets of a city, I heard the 

 shrike's harsh warble. Looking about me, I 

 soon saw the bird perched upon the topmost 

 twig of a near tree, saluting the sunrise. It 

 was what the robin might have done, but the 

 strain had none of the robin's melody. 



Some have compared the shrike's song to the 

 creaking of a rusty gate-hinge, but it is not 

 quite so bad as that. Still it is unmistakably 



