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For example, the Grasshopper-Warbler, Marsh-Warbler, Nightingale, Corncrake, Red-backed Shrike, or Whinchat have each some distinctive peculiarity which makes them conspicuous, and each one is subject to marked fluctuation in numbers.

The color of the bird and the character of his performance attract the attention of every observer, bird, beast, or man, within reach of vision. The red-backed tyrant is utterly unlike any of his kind in the United States, and until I looked him up in Sclater and Hudson's ornithology I never dreamed that he belonged to this family.

Ordinarily, following his habitual routine, he would have gone across town to his little house; would have washed his hands with a bar of the yellow laundry soap; would have cooked and eaten his breakfast, and then, after tidying up the kitchen, would have made the customary entry in his red-backed account-book.

Now we should not have been able to afford it, and we should never have known you, Sylvia dear! It's funny, isn't it, to think that this little crib is too big for us?" "Oh, awfully funny!" said Jack drily. He had opened the topmost drawer in the writing-table and taken out half a dozen red-backed books and a bundle of bills.

Just the same tidy, clean swept up, a good fire, and the same old red-backed chairs standing round on the hearth in most cozy fashion. It seemed to Ellen a perfect storehouse of comfort; the very walls had a kind face for her. There were no other faces, however; the chairs were all empty. Mr.

Seven weeks later the Government took up a plot of ground for a Chief Court close to the end of my compound, and employed nearly four hundred coolies on the foundations. Naboth bought a blue and white striped blanket, a brass lamp-stand, and a small boy, to cope with the rush of trade, which was tremendous. Five days later he bought a huge, fat, red-backed account-book, and a glass inkstand.

Finally I asked him to look at a red-backed shrike, perched on a bush about fifteen yards from his nets, through my field-glasses, and from that moment he became as friendly as possible, and conversed freely about his mystery. "How near it brings him!" he exclaimed, with a grin of delight, after looking at the bird.

Combing down the steep hillside with our rakes, we dislodge a large stone, exposing a black patch of fibrous roots and leaf-mould, in which something moves and disappears. Scooping up a double handful of the mould, we capture a little red-backed salamander. Listen! Something piping!

Even the Jay, than which few birds have a more raucous voice, that "hoots" like the Wood-Owl, or copies the sounds produced by the tail feathers of the Snipe, will occasionally imitate the most melodious strains of some other species; and the Red-backed Shrike, whose sexual call is principally a few harsh notes rapidly repeated, bursts at times into perfect imitations of the song of the Swallow, Linnet, or Chaffinch.

"I have it here," and he produced a small, red-backed blank book. "This has caused so much trouble. Examine it, and you will see it was to contain only the names of those who would resist the accession of the Duke of York to the throne." The book was passed around to the Judge and Jury, and a smile dawned on the face of each, which was dangerous to the friends of the prosecution.