nce, perching on a dead branch of the maple-tree, and
sitting there half an hour at a time, motionless but wide awake; ready,
no doubt, to defend the nest if I made hostile demonstrations toward it.

For a long time I had my lonely road to myself, almost the sole
passer-by being a boy who drove the village cows back and forth, and
whom I had taken pains to interest in the safety of the little family.
But such a state of things could not last. One morning, as I sat in my
usual place, I noticed a party of girls starting out with baskets and
pails after berries. They scattered over the meadow, and while I
trembled for meadow lark and bobolink babies, I hoped they would not see
me; but one of them came directly to the thorn-tree. As she approached,
I turned away, as if I had no particular interest in the tree, but,
unfortunately, just as she was passing, the bird flew off the nest. The
girl looked up, and instantly shouted to me, "Oh, here's a bird's-nest!"
"Yes," I replied, knowing that my best policy was to claim it, "that's
the nest I am watching." After a sharp look at the tree she went on; but
I was much disturbed, for I regard a nest discovered almost the same as
a nest robbed. Would she tell? Should I some day find the nest broken up
or destroyed? Every morning, after that, I took my long, lonely walk
with misgivings, and did not feel easy till I had seen the birds.

[Sidenote: _SEARCHING THE THORNS._]

One very notorious habit of the shrike I had been especially desirous of
investigating--that of impaling his prey. Judging from what has been
written about him, it must be a common performance, his daily business,
and I confidently expected to see his thorn-tree adorned, from roots to
topmost twig, with grasshoppers and beetles, not to mention small birds
and animals. Early in my visits to him, I looked the tree over
carefully, and, not content with my own eyes, called in the aid of a
friend. Moreover, we together made diligent search in the only other
thorn-tree in the vicinity, one spoken of above. Not a sign could we
discover in either tree of any such use of a thorn, though thorns were
there in abundance.

Again, one day I saw the bird very busy about the barbed-wire fence, and
remembering to have seen the statement that shrikes in the West, where
thorn-trees are absent, impale their grasshoppers on the barbs, I
thought, "Now I have surely caught you at it!" I did not disturb him,
and he worked at that spot som