BIRUS. 93 



brood live in oue family togetlier. Each family lives apart, and 

 is generally composed of the male, female, and five or six young 

 ones ; these all maintain peace and subordination among each 

 other, and hunt in concert. Upon the returning season of 

 courtship, this union is at an end, the family parts for ever, 

 each to establish a little household of its own. It is easy to 

 distinguish these birds at a distance, not only from their goiii;^ 

 in companies, but also from their manner of riying, which is 

 always up and down, seldom direct or sideways. 



Of these birds there are three or four different kinds ; but 

 the greater ash-coloured butcher-bird is the least known among 

 us. The red-backed butcher-bird migrates in autumn, and does 

 not return till spring. The wood-chat resembles the former, ex- 

 cept in the colour of the back, which is brown, and not red as 

 in the other. There is still another, less than either of the 

 former, found in the marshes near London. This too is a 

 bird of prey, although not much bigger than a titmouse ; an 

 evident proof that an animal's courage or rapacity does not de- 

 pend upon its size. Of foreign birds of this kind there are 

 several ; but as we knovv little of their manner of living we will 

 not, instead of history, substitute mere description. In fact, 

 the colours of a bird, which is all we know of them, would 

 afford a reader but small entertainment in the enumeration. 

 Nothing can be more easy than to fill volumes with the diffe- 

 rent shades of a bird's plumage ; but these accounts are writ- 

 ten with more pleasure than they are read ; and a single glance 

 of a good plate or a picture imprints a juster idea than a volume 

 could convey.* 



CHAP. VIL 



OF RAPACIOUS BIRDS OF THE OWL KIND, THAT PREY BY NIGHT. 



Hitherto we have been describing a tribe of animals who, 

 though plunderers among their fellows of the air, yet wage 

 war boldly in the face of day. We now come to a race equally 



* Tlie great butcher-bird of America is said to stick RTasshoppors upon 

 sharp thorns for the purpose, as is supposed, of tempting the smaller birds 

 iuto a situation where it can easily dart out upon them and seize thera. 



