i2 4 IN THE GREEN LEAF 



were cut down and their roots grubbed up, I 

 used at times, although not very often, to find 

 the birds somewhere about them, if I carefully 

 looked for him in the right seasons, autumn and 

 winter ; but such chances of observation are the 

 exception, and not the rule. The finest bird 

 which I have ever seen of this species, a male 

 in full plumage, was hunting along a very thick 

 and high old hedge one morning in July 1854. 

 Certain flight -lines are followed by a certain 

 class of birds, even although the inducement, 

 that at one time caused them to follow those 

 lines, may have ceased to exist. 



This is the case with the great shrike, for 

 one was seen in the same place to which I 

 have above referred in the year 1891. Three, 

 or it may be four, dead ones have been shown 

 me in the course of the last seven years ; and 

 all of these had been shot in a sort of " No 

 man's land " district, where old orchards still 

 existed. The trees and their branches were 

 moss-covered, but for all that they had rare 

 crops, and the hedges that surrounded them 

 were even older than they were themselves. 



There is a row in the hedge, as if all the 

 birds in and about it had got some particu- 

 larly important grievance to settle. Then 



