IN FIELD AND WOOD 



it darted round the tree-trunk, he began exploring 

 the tree all the way to the top. Then he dropped 

 down to near the bottom, and in so doing started the 

 creeper from its place of hiding. It came quickly on 

 my side of the tree and stopped, clinging to the bark 

 where it was partly shielded and hidden by a rope 

 attached to a hammock. There it crouched motion- 

 less and, I fancied, trembling for its life. The shrike 

 has not the talons of the bird of prey and hence it 

 cannot strike its quarry as the hawk can. Its weapon 

 is its slightly hooked beak. With this it breaks the 

 skulls of its victims and then sups upon their brains. 

 The little creeper acted as if it knew all this, but I 

 suppose all it knew was that a large bird with a 

 murderous instinct was hotly pursuing it. 



The shrike in his search now alighted upon the 

 hammock; this act caused the rope to move that 

 partly concealed the creeper, and away it flew, no 

 doubt in a panic of fear. The shrike saw it and gave 

 chase, but before I could get into the open where 

 I could see the issue, both birds had disappeared, 

 nor could I see a feather of either anywhere on the 

 ground or among the trees of the neighborhood. I 

 think the creeper escaped, though I thought its 

 leaving the maple was very bad tactics. 



In December, 1910, my son and I witnessed a little 

 bird tragedy which showed how fatal it is for one of 

 our smaller birds to seek to escape from the mur- 

 derous shrike by open flight. I had just stepped out 



