ish,
without intermission, but slowly, till half of the snake was devoured.
The following morning the remaining half was also completely eaten
up." When rather young these animals make very interesting pets; they
soon become tame, and will allow you to stroke their cheeks. You
remember our placing a hedgehog on the study table, and seeing how it
got off on to the ground. It came to the edge, and threw itself off,
coiling up its body partly as it fell; the elastic nature of its
prickly covering enabling it to bear the shock of the fall without the
slightest inconvenience.

[Illustration: GREAT GREY SHRIKE, OR BUTCHER BIRD, WITH ITS
VICTIMS--SHREWS AND BLUE TITMOUSE.]

Let us go on the moors again, and watch the coots and water-hens in
the reedy pools near the aqueduct. Do you see that great tit on a
branch of this poplar? He is actually at work doing a bit of butchery
on a small warbler. See how he is beating the poor little fellow on
the head; he wants to get at his brains. "Are there not birds called
butcher-birds?" asked Willy, "that fix their victims on thorns, and
then peck off their flesh? Shall we see any of them?" There are three
kinds of butcher-birds that have been known to come to this country.
Two kinds are very uncommon, and we are not likely to meet with any of
them in our walks. I may as well, however, tell you something about
them; but, as I have no personal knowledge of the habits of any of the
species, I must get my information from other sources. The great grey
shrike, the red-backed shrike, and the woodchat shrike, are the three
species of the family occurring in Great Britain; the red-backed
shrike is the only tolerably common one, arriving in this country
late in April, and quitting it in September. Mr. John Shaw tells me
this bird visits the quarry grounds at Shrewsbury every spring, and an
early riser, if he goes there, can see these birds readily. Mr.
Yarrell says that the great grey shrike is only an occasional visitor
to this country, and is generally obtained between autumn and spring.
Its food consists of mice, shrews, small birds, frogs, lizards, and
large insects. "After having killed its prey, it fixes the body in a
forked branch, or upon a sharp thorn, the more readily to pull off
small pieces from it." The following remarks are by a gentleman who
had one of these birds in confinement:--"An old bird of this species,"
he says, "taken near Norwich in October, 1835, lived in my possession