78 Flash MonTs on Nature 



doesn't like his j^iiine hij^li : hut he also knows 

 that wouiuled hirds will livo on and keep quite 

 fresh for days toj^ether ; so he is eareful to dis- 

 ahle without actually killiuj; the creatures he 

 captures. 



Anion}^ the animals I have seen in hutcher- 

 birds' larders 1 may mention mice, shrews, lizards, 

 robins, tomtits, and sparrows ; amonj^ the smaller 

 birds lie especially alTects willow- wrens and chiff- 

 chatfs : but keejiers tell me that they have even 

 found them sei/in<4 and spittini^ younj^ partridj^es 

 and pheasants. Whether this is true or not 1 can- 

 \\o{ say ; but the ^^ame-preservinj^ interest certaiidy 

 looks upon shrikes with no friendlv eye, and you 

 may sometimes see one hun;^ up on a nail amonj^ 

 the jays and hawks and stoats and weasels on 

 the *' keeper's trees," where the guardians of the 

 wood display tlu- corpses or skins of evil-doers 

 as a tenoi" to their like, nuich as mediieval kin^s 

 displayed the heads of traitors above the j^ates of 

 the city. 



Oddly enough, however, these "keeper's trees" 

 themselves are favourite haunts and hawkin^-pitches 

 of the butcher-bird, who is so little deterred by the 

 supposed lesson that he uses them as convenient 

 places for catchinj^ insects. For, in spite of his 

 occasional carnivorous tastes, vour shrike is at 

 heart, and in essence, an insect-eater. He adds a 

 mouse or a tit as an exceptional luxury. Now, he 

 knows that the owls and stoats hun}4 up on the 

 keeper's rustic museum attract numbers of carrion 

 flies, and he therefore perches cahnly on the 



