e time. But when he had gone I hastened
over to see what beetle or bird he had laid up, when behold, the barbs
were as empty as the thorns. In fact, I was never able to find the
smallest evidence that the bird ever does impale anything, and the St.
Albans ornithologist spoken of adds as his testimony that he has often
examined the haunts of this bird, but has never found anything impaled.
And a correspondent in Vermont writes me that he watched the shrike for
twenty years, on purpose to see this performance, and in all that time
saw but three instances, one being a field mouse, and the other two
English sparrows.

All this, of course, does not prove that the shrike never impales his
prey, but it does prove that he does not spend all his time at the work;
and while I have no doubt he has the habit, I believe the accounts of it
are very much exaggerated.

On the morning of the Fourth of July, a cool, and in that remote part of
the world a delightfully quiet day, I felt an unaccountable
disinclination to make my usual visit to the shrikes. Refusing, however,
to yield to that feeling, I forced myself to take the long walk, and
seat myself in my usual place. But I could not feel much surprise when,
after more than an hour's close watching, the birds failed to appear,
and I became convinced that they were gone. Whether shot by man or boy,
robbed by beast or bird or human, it was plain I had seen the last of
the thorn-tree family; for I knew positively that in that hour no one
had gone to or come from the nest, and I was sure, from my knowledge of
her, that the sitting bird would not remain an hour without eating, even
if her mate had stayed away so long. Of course, I concluded, that girl
had told her discovery, and some boy had heard, and broken up the home.
I looked carefully on every side. The nest seemed undisturbed, but not a
sign of life appeared about it, and sadly enough I folded my chair and
went back to the village.

[Sidenote: _"PAUPERIZING" A BIRD._]

Six days passed, in which I avoided going up the lonely road, the scene
of my disappointment, but I turned my attention to bird affairs in the
town. One case which interested me greatly was of "pauperizing" a bird.
It was a least flycatcher, and her undoing was her acceptance of nesting
material, which her human friend, the oft-mentioned local bird-lover,
supplied. To secure a unique nest for herself, when the flycatcher
babies should have abandoned it, this wily