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.