Grasshoppers, beetles, other large insects, and field-mice are staple articles of its food in seasons when they are obtainable; in fact, next to insects, mice constitute the staple article of its diet; and protection should be accorded it on this account, even though we know the Shrike chiefly as the killer of small birds. The victims are caught by two methods: sneaking,—after the fashion of Crows,—and dropping upon them suddenly from a height, like the small Hawks. In the former case the Shrikes frequent clumps of bushes, either in open meadows or gardens, lure the little birds by imitating their call-notes, and then seize them as soon as they come within range. They often kill many more birds than they can possibly eat at a meal, and hang them on the spikes of a thorn or on the hooks of a cat-brier in some convenient spot, until they are needed, in the same manner as a butcher hangs his meat; and from this trait the name “Butcher-bird” was given them. * * * * * During some of these wintry days of meeting, questions and answers about the birds seen filled the time, and then Gray Lady read to them from some of her many books what people living in other places had said and thought of these same familiar birds. Besides the stories, she told them many things about the building of a bird, its bones, its feathers, the reasons why of the various kinds of feet and bills, the grouping of race, tribe, and family that both divide the bird world and at the same time bind it together; for she very well knew that when spring came with its procession of songsters, the children would be so eager to listen, see, follow, and learn the names of the living birds that they would not have patience to listen to the dry details. THE SNOWBIRD When the leaves are shed And the branches bare, When the snows are deep And the flowers asleep, And the autumn dead; And the skies are o’er us bent Gray and gloomy since she went, And the sifting snow is drifting Through the air; Then mid snowdrifts white, Though the trees are bare, Comes the Snowbird bold In the winter’s cold. Quick and round and bright, Light he steps across the snow. Cares he not for winds that blow, Though the sifting snow be drifting Through the air. —Dora R. Goodale. ON HEARING A WINTER WREN SING IN WINTER When wintry winds through woodlands blow And naked tree-tops shake and shiver; While all the paths were bound in snow, And thick ice chains the merry river, One little feathered denizen, A plump and nut-brown winter wren, Sings of springtime even there— “Tsip-twis-ch-e-e-e cheerily-cheerily-dare”— Who could listen and despair?