OR BUTCHER-BIRD. 135 



feeding them long after they have left the nest ; for the 

 young appear to be heavy, inactive birds, and little able 

 to capture the winged insects, that constitute their 

 principal food. I could never observe that this bird 

 destroyed others smaller than itself, or even fed upon 

 flesh. I have hung up dead young birds, and even parts 

 of them, near their nests ; but never found that they 

 were touched by the shrike. Yet it appears that it 

 must be a butcher too ; and that the name " lanius" 

 bestowed on it by Gesner two hundred and fifty years 

 ago, was not lightly given. My neighbor's gamekeeper 

 kills it as a bird of prey ; and tells me he has known it 

 draw the weak young pheasants through the bars of the 

 breeding coops ; and others have assured me that they 

 have killed them when banqueting on the carcass of 

 some little bird they had captured. All small birds 

 have an antipathy to the shrike, betray anger, and utter 

 the moan of danger, when it approaches their nest. I 

 have often heard this signal of distress, and, cautiously 

 approaching to learn the cause, have frequently found 

 that this butcher-bird occasioned it. They will mob, 

 attack, and drive it away, as they do the owl, as if fully 

 acquainted with its plundering propensities. Linnaeus 

 attached to it the trivial epithet " excubitor" a sentinel ; 

 a very apposite appellation, as this bird seldom conceals 

 itself in a bush, but sits perched upon some upper 

 spray, or in an open situation, heedful of danger, or 

 watching for its prey. This shrike must be most mis- 

 chievously inclined, if not a predatory bird. May 23d : 

 A pair of robins have young ones in a bank near my 

 dwelling: the anxiety and vociferation of the potr 

 things have three times this day called my attention to 

 the cause of their distress, and each time have I seen 

 this bird watching near the place, or stealing away upon 

 my approach ; and then the tumult of the parents sub- 

 sided ; but had they not experienced injury, or been 

 aware that it was meditated, all this terror and outcry 

 would not have been excited. 



Many birds are arranged in our British ornithology 

 not known as permanent inhabitants, but which have 

 occasionally visited our shores during inclement seasons, 



