136 STORIES OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS 



" Oh ! oh ! how funny you look," said Tommy- 

 Anne ; " won't you sit on the fender until you are 

 dry ? Please tell me why you have such a hook 

 on the end of your beak. You look something 

 like a Hawk." 



"Thanks, I will go by the fire," said the Shrike, 

 in a shamefaced way. 



" That hook is to help me catch my food. I 

 suppose that you would call me a cannibal bird, 

 for the House People have named me ' Butcher 

 Bird,' because when I catch more game than I 

 need, I hang some of it up on bushes and thorns, 

 as a butcher hangs his meats. To be sure, I do 

 sometimes eat my smaller brothers, but like all 

 the others, the Crows, the Hawks, and Owls, the 

 mice and beetles and harmful insects I destroy, 

 when compared to the birds I eat, are as a moun- 

 tain to a mole hill." 



" Do winter birds sing ? Do you ever sing, 

 Mr. Shrike?" 



" Indeed he does," said Waw-be-ko-ko, "though 

 not in the winter. In his nesting haunts he 

 warbles like a Thrush, and so do these two also, 

 the brown and white brother, the Snow Bunting, 

 and this mottled Shore Lark, who soars and sings 

 above his Labrador nest like his cousin the Eng- 

 lish Skylark. 



