a recently cut field of wheat, and it was
doubtless some species of ground mouse, a common field mouse, I have
reason to believe.

And that was the last I saw of the pretty gray birds that year.

III.

A THORN-TREE NEST.

June was drawing to a close; hermit thrushes and veeries had turned
their energies to seeking food for hungry young mouths; rose-breasted
grosbeaks and golden orioles, as well as their more humbly clad
fellow-creatures, were passing their days near the ground, in the same
absorbing work; tree-tops were deserted, and singing was nearly over.

It was well, then, that I should leave my beloved woods, and betake
myself to a barren country road, where, in a lonely thorn-tree, a bird
of another sort than these had set up late housekeeping, a shrike.

The reputation of this bird of solitary tastes is not attractive. He is
quarrelsome and unfriendly with his kind, and aggressive and malicious
toward others, says the Oracle. His pleasure is to torture and destroy;
no sweet or tender sentiment may cling about his life; in fact, he is
altogether unlovely. So declare the books, and so, with additions and
exaggerations, says nearly every one who takes birds for his theme. He
is branded everywhere as the "butcher-bird," and it seems to be the aim
of each writer to discover in his conduct something a little more
sanguinary, a shade more depraved, than any predecessor has done.

Now, if the truth is what we are seeking, is it not desirable to see for
ourselves, or, as Emerson puts it, "leave others' eyes, and bring your
own"? If one can give to the task patient observation, with a loving
spirit, a desire to interpret faithfully and to see the best instead of
the worst, may he not perchance find that the bird is not the monster he
is pictured? And though the story be not so sensational, is it not
better to clear up than to blacken the reputation of a fellow-creature,
even a very small one in feathers?

This thing it had long been in my heart to do,--to see with my own eyes
what enormities the beautiful butcher-bird is guilty of. I left hermits
and veeries, I said adieu to sandpipers and grosbeaks, and went to the
village to abide with the shrike family. No more delightful mornings in
the blessed woods; no more long, dreamy twilights filled with the music
of thrushes and the singing brook; no more charming views of the near
Green Mountains, gray in the morning light, glorious rosy purple under
the sett