"I thought you would tell about my beautiful red bird next," interrupted Dodo. "Why do we want to hear about this bird if he lives so far north?" "Your bird will come later on, little girl. Nat and Rap must each have their turn before it comes to you again; besides, this Shrike is a sort of cousin to the Vireos by right of his hooked beak, and you know I am trying to place our birds somewhat in their regular family order." Poor Dodo felt ashamed to have seemed selfish and interrupted unnecessarily. "Some winter or early spring day, when the woods are bare and birds are very scarce, you will look into a small tree and wonder what that gray and black bird, who is sitting there so motionless, can be. He is too small for a Hawk, though there is something hawk-like about his head. He is altogether too large for a Chickadee; not the right shape for a Woodpecker; and after thus thinking over the most familiar winter birds, you will find that you only know what he is _not_. [Illustration: Northern Shrike.] "Suddenly he spreads his wings and swoops down, seizing something on or near the ground--a mouse perhaps, or a small bird--let us hope one of the detestable English Sparrows. Or else you may see this same bird, in the gray and black uniform, peep cautiously out of a bush and then skim along close above the ground, to secure the field-mouse he has been watching; for the guild of Wise Watchers catch their prey in both of these ways, and most of them are cannibal birds." "What is a cannibal bird?" asked Dodo. "I forget. I know that real cannibals are people that eat other people. Do these birds eat people?" "They eat birds and other small animals," said Rap. "Don't you remember?" "Why, of course I do," said Dodo. "But if Shrikes eat birds, aren't they very bad Citizens?" "I do not wonder that you think so, my lassie; and so they would be if they ate birds only; but the Shrike earns his right to be thought a good Citizen by devouring mice and many kinds of insects, like beetles, which injure orchards and gardens. The comparatively few birds that he destroys are mostly seed-eaters--not the most valuable kinds to the farmer. "In fact, the Shrike is especially useful in helping us to drive out the greedy, quarrelsome English Sparrow. This disreputable tramp not only does no work for his taxes--he hates honest work, like all vagrants --but destroys the buds of trees and plants, devours our grain crops, and drives away the industrious native birds who are good Citizens; so the Wise Men, who have tried the Sparrow's case, say that he is a very bad bird, who ought to suffer the extreme penalty of the law.