through all his retirements, to obtain his wings. The great shrike, or butcher-bird (lanius excubitor), is not uncommon with us, and breeds annually near my dwelling. It is one of our late birds of passage, but its arrival is soon made known to us by its croaking, unmusical voice from the summit of some tree. Its nest is large and ill-concealed; and during the season of incubation the male bird is particularly vigilant and uneasy at any approach towards his sitting mate, though often by his clamorous anxiety he betrays it and her to every bird-nesting boy. The female, when the eggs are hatched, unites her vociferations with those of the male, and facilitates the detection of the brood. Both parents are very assiduous in their attentions to their offspring, feeding them long after they have left the nest; for the young appear to be heavy, inactive birds, and little able to capture the winged insects, that constitute their principal food. I could never observe that this bird destroyed others smaller than itself, or even fed upon flesh. I have hung up dead young birds, and even parts of them, near their nests; but never found that they were touched by the shrike. Yet it appears that it must be a butcher too; and that the name “_lanius_,” bestowed on it by Gesner two hundred and fifty years ago, was not lightly given. My neighbor’s gamekeeper kills it as a bird of prey; and tells me he has known it draw the weak young pheasants through the bars of the breeding coops; and others have assured me that they have killed them when banqueting on the carcass of some little bird they had captured. All small birds have an antipathy to the shrike, betray anger, and utter the moan of danger, when it approaches their nest. I have often heard this signal of distress, and, cautiously approaching to learn the cause, have frequently found that this butcher- bird occasioned it. They will mob, attack, and drive it away, as they do the owl, as if fully acquainted with its plundering propensities. Linnæus attached to it the trivial epithet “_excubitor_,” a sentinel; a very apposite appellation, as this bird seldom conceals itself in a bush, but sits perched upon some upper spray, or in an open situation, heedful of danger, or watching for its prey. This shrike must be most mischievously inclined, if not a predatory bird.—May 23d:—A pair of robins have young ones in a bank near my dwelling: the anxiety and vociferation of the poor things have three times this day called my attention to the cause of their distress, and each time have I seen this bird watching near the place, or stealing away upon my approach; and then the tumult of the parents subsided; but had they not experienced injury, or been aware that it was meditated, all this terror and outcry would not have been excited.