tail and rushed for his hole with the greatest precipitation. As he
neared it, I saw some bluish object in the air closing in upon him with
the speed of an arrow, and, as he vanished within, a shrike brought up
in front of the spot, and with spread wings and tail stood hovering a
moment, and looking in, then turned and went away. Apparently it was a
narrow escape for the chipmunk, and, I venture to say, he stole no more
corn that morning. The shrike is said to catch mice, but it is not
known to attack squirrels. He certainly could not have strangled the
chipmunk, and I am curious to know what would have been the result had
he overtaken him. Probably it was only a kind of brag on the part of
the bird,--a bold dash where no risk was run. He simulated the hawk,
the squirrel's real enemy, and no doubt enjoyed the joke.

On another occasion, as I was riding along a mountain road early in
April, a bird started from the fence where I was passing, and flew
heavily to the branch of a near apple-tree. It proved to be a shrike
with a small bird in his beak. He thrust his victim into a fork of a
branch, then wiped his bloody beak upon the bark. A youth who was with
me, to whom I pointed out the fact, had never heard of such a thing,
and was much incensed at the shrike. "Let me fire a stone at him," said
he, and jumping out of the wagon, he pulled off his mittens and fumbled
about for a stone. Having found one to his liking, with great
earnestness and deliberation he let drive. The bird was in more danger
than I had imagined, for he escaped only by a hair's breadth; a
guiltless bird like the robin or sparrow would surely have been slain;
the missile grazed the spot where the shrike sat, and cut the ends of
his wings as he darted behind the branch. We could see that the
murdered bird had been brained, as its head hung down toward us.

The shrike is not a summer bird with us in the Northern States, but