WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



high rider of some lonely fence, where he quietly 

 waits till a luckless field-mouse creeps out and he 

 is able to pounce upon it ; or an incautious sparrow 

 or kinglet dashes past, unconscious of the watch- 

 ful foe who seizes him like a flash of lightning. 

 Having felled his quarry with a single blow, he 

 returns to his fence-post and eats the brains rarely 

 more or perhaps does not taste a single billful, 

 but impales the body upon a thorn, or hangs it in 

 an angle of the fence, as a butcher suspends his 

 quarters of beef. It used to be thought this mur- 

 derer thus impaled nine captives, and no more, 

 so he was christened nine-killer; the bookmen 

 labelled him Lanius borealis ; we know him as the 

 butcher-bird; he is the arctic brother of the sum- 

 mer shrikes, and the boldest and bravest of his sav- 

 age race. 



