HAWKING. 
and had got into the poultry -yard. I saw him march very 
deliberately np to a brood of young chickens, and, without 
saying ‘ By your leave ’ to anybody, he pounced upon one in 
the most savage fashion, and would have killed it in an instant, 
but that the old hen rushed to the rescue with a blow that 
sent the young robber several feet distant. The indignant 
mother followed up the attack, and, when I was about to 
interfere, to my surprise, the young wretch, with all his 
feathers bristling like a little hedgehog, threw himself upon 
his back, and awaited the onset with open mouth and fierce 
eyes. The hen struck at him with her beak, and, quick as 
lightning, he clutched her head with his claws, and the as- 
tonished hen ran squalling off, shaking her head in agony, to 
get rid of this new sort of head- gear. When she had shaken 
him off, she ran away in a great fright, and he strutted around 
with a most conscious air. 
“ ‘ Well,’ muttered I, ‘ this is getting to be something of a 
joke; my new variety seems to have more of the hawk than 
the song-bird in it. I never heard of mocking-birds killing 
young chickens, or whipping old hens, before.’ Just at this 
moment, my sister, who witnessed the scene, and heard a part 
of my muttered soliloquy from a window close at hand, burst 
into a ringing laugh, and, as- 1 looked up, disappeared. 
“In a moment she came bounding down the steps to meet 
me, with a small book in her hand, which I recognized with a 
foreboding thrill before she reached me. It was a small school 
edition of selections from ornithology, with woodcut illustra- 
tions. She held her hand on the page, to cover something, 
while she read, as well as she could for laughter, Wilson’s 
version of the lizard story ; and when she had got through, 
removed her hand suddenly from the cut, and, though it was 
remarkably rudely done, I instantly recognized in my new 
variety — the Butcher-bird.” 
The exact position the great shrike — indeed all the shrikes — 
are entitled to take among their feathered brethren, it is hard to 
define, as, says Mr. Wood, “ one naturalist pounces on the bill, 
and straightway drags the shrikes into his rostral system ; 
another seizes on the legs, and flings them into his pedal sys- 
tem ; a third declares that as they eat birds and mice they 
ought to be placed among the predacious tribes ; while another 
lays equal stress upon their habit of feeding on grasshoppers 
and beetles, and wants them to be inserted in the list of the 
Muscicapidse, or flycatchers. So the poor shrikes are insulted 
262 
