WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 1 45 



the fatal claws which close into the tender flesh 

 of the plumpest chick in the flock and bear it off 

 triumphantly. 



By this time the news has been communicated 

 to the family at dinner (for our freebooter seems 

 to choose such occasions to perpetrate his crimes) 

 and there is a general uprising from the table, and 

 a rush to the windows and doors, but before Ben 

 can have a chance with his gun to end the life of 

 the insidious marauder, he has vanished like an 

 apparation into the neighboring thicket, to feast at 

 leisure on the game that perchance a short time 

 before, in its turn, had seized a helpless angle 

 worm. Thus it is in Nature : " She arms and 

 equips an animal to find its place and living in 

 the world, and arms and equips another animal to 

 destroy it." 



But there is one little bird in the orchard that 

 does not appear to be afraid of our winged pirate. 

 The kingbird, if not a raptor, is at least a tyrant, 

 a petty tyrant, a veritable monitor of the air, that 

 plagues the life of the larger birds. What a fierce 

 eye he has, set in a head-dress so ruffled and care- 

 lessly worn ! He has an irritable temper, too, and 

 the least interference with him sets his head on 

 fire at once. Either for some real or fancied 



