Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored 



of English sparrows they kill in a season, as if wanton carnage 

 were ever justifiable. 



Not even a hawk itself can produce the consternation among 

 a flock of sparrows that the harsh, rasping voice of the butcher- 

 bird creates, for escape they well know to be difficult before the 

 small ogre swoops down upon his victim, and carries it off to 

 impale it on a thorn or frozen twig, there to devour it later 

 piecemeal. Every shrike thus either impales or else hangs up, as 

 a butcher does his meat, more little birds of many kinds, field- 

 mice, grasshoppers, and other large insects than it can hope to 

 devour in a week of bloody orgies. Field-mice are perhaps its 

 favorite diet, but even snakes are not disdained. 



More contemptible than the actual slaughter of its victims, if 

 possible, is the method by which the shrike often lures and 

 sneaks upon his prey. Hiding in a clump of bushes in the meadow 

 or garden, he imitates with fiendish cleverness the call-notes of 

 little birds that come in cheerful response, hopping and flitting 

 within easy range of him. His bloody work is finished in a 

 trice. Usually, however, it must be owned, the shrike's hunt- 

 ing habits are the reverse of sneaking. Perched on a point of 

 vantage on some tree-top or weather-vane, his hawk-like eye 

 can detect a grasshopper going through the grass fifty yards 

 away. 



What is our surprise when some fine warm day in March, 

 just before our butcher, ogre, sneak, and fiend leaves us for colder 

 regions, to hear him break out into song ! Love has warmed 

 even his cold heart, and with sweet, warbled notes on the tip of 

 a beak that but yesterday was reeking with his victim's blood, 

 he starts for Canada, leaving behind him the only good impres- 

 sion he has made during a long winter's visit. 



Bohemian Waxwing 



(Ampelis garrulus) Waxwing family 



Called also : BLACK-THROATED WAXWING ; LAPLAND 

 WAXWING ; SILKTAIL 



Length — 8 to 9. 5 inches. A little smaller than the robin. 

 Male and Female — General color drab, with faint brownish wash 

 above, shading into lighter gray below. Crest conspicuous, 



88 •> 



