52 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
extemporised larder on such occasions was to incur his most vehement indignation. 
He would fiy at the intruder, attacking him fiercely with beak and claws, all the 
time giving utterance to a torrent of “ chatteration,” which, to polite ears, would 
probably not bear free translation. With a captured sparrow or any other trophy 
of his bow and spear, these pugilistic manifestations were all in the grimmest earnest. 
The bird, however, was brimful of fun, and nothing pleased him more on other 
occasions than a mock battle on the same lines, with as much noise, but as it were 
buttoned foils, over say a piece of rag or an empty banana skin, which, pushing 
out or snatching away from between his cage bars, he would dare the writer to steal 
from his clutches. In other ways this bird was most gentle and tractable with his 
owner. Among the little tricks he indulged in, he would lie on his back in his cage 
stiff and rigid as though he were dead, allowing himself to be picked up and swung 
to and fro by his legs, as though on a pendulum, without moving a muscle. This 
little trick was acquired by him so easily and in so natural a manner that it favours 
the suspicion that it represented a hereditary, instinctive habit occasionally resorted 
to by these birds as a stratagem wherewith to lie in wait for and capture the birds 
and other small animals upon which they naturally prey. The author is indeed 
inclined to believe that the sparrows this bird captured in the garden were taken 
by some such stratagem, for, his wing being cut, he would scarcely have caught 
one of these alert birds on even terms. He was, however, never seen in the act. 
As with many birds and other creatures capable of forming strong attachments, 
jealousy was with this Shrike a ruling passion, and proved his ruin. With the 
Podargi, through uninterrupted early association, he was on the best of terms. In 
an unlucky hour, however, the writer consented to take temporary charge of a 
neighbour’s Piping Crow, the so-called Australian Magpie, Gymnorhina tibicens. With 
the arrival of that Magpie the Butcher-bird’s peace of mind received a shock, though 
unrecognised at the time, from which it never recovered. No sooner did he 
commence a bar of his favourite air than the Magpie would at once overpower it 
with a louder and, for the occasion, harsher note, and this unfriendly stratagem, 
continually repeated, had the effect, in the long run, of entirely silencing his song. 
Further than this, the Butcher-bird now began to mope, and lost his appetite and 
more winning ways. The recognised cause of his discomfiture was removed, but 
unfortunately too late. All attempts to resuscitate his health proved fruitless, and, 
affectionately responding to our caresses to the last, he peacefully passed away. 
Surely, as the elder Agassiz has previously suggested, there will be a resurrection 
