SHRIKE VS. SPARROW. 



Just before Christmas I noticed in a local paper a 

 communication from Laconia to the effect that the 

 shrikes or butcher-birds had been causing considera- 

 ble destruction among the English sparrows in that 

 region. One gentleman had been feeding a flock of 

 sparrows at his back door. Subsequently finding 

 some of their carcasses impaled on rose and barberry- 

 bushes about the place, he had offered a reward of a 

 dollar apiece for the first five dead bodies of the shrike 

 species delivered into his hands. 



As this sparrow-advocate is a lawyer, it might be 

 presumptuous to call his attention to the statute for- 

 bidding the killing of any birds in our state except 

 hawks, crows, game birds in their season and the 

 sparrows aforesaid; but I would like to make a coun- 

 ter proposition. If any citizen of Laconia or any 

 other place has shrikes to spare, I wish he would send 

 them down to our back yard where I would cheer- 

 fully furnish the birds with board and lodging. I 

 am not certain that I would not pay a bounty of a 

 dollar apiece on all the shrikes who would take up 

 their permanent abode on our premises. We have an 



