Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/95

Rh river only partly open. On the bill I hear first the tapping of a small woodpecker. I then see a bird alight on the dead top of the highest white oak on the hill-top, on the topmost point. It is a shrike. While I am watching him eight or ten rods off, I hear robins down below west of the hill. Then to my surprise the shrike begins to sing. It is at first a wholly ineffectual and inarticulate sound, without any solid tone, a mere hoarse breathing, as if he were clearing his throat, unlike any bird that I know, a shrill hissing. Then he uttered a kind of mew, a very decided mewing, clear and wiry, between that of a catbird and the note of the nuthatch, as if to lure a nuthatch within his reach. Then rose with the sharpest, shrillest vibratory or tremulous whistling, or chirruping on the very highest key. This high gurgling jingle was like some of the notes of a robin singing in summer. But they were very short spurts in all these directions, though there was all this variety. Unless you saw the shrike, it would be hard to tell what bird it was. These various notes covered considerable time, but were sparingly uttered with intervals. It was a decided chinking sound, the clearest strain, suggesting much ice in the stream. I heard this bird sing once before, but that was also in early spring, or about this time. It is said that they imitate