Show WIRE FENCE BIRDS LARDER california songster makes use of queer storehouse when th garbed wire fence first came into use in california cattle owners cursed the inventor not so the butcher bird the butcher bird Is a creature about the size of a small crow and he lives on insects and smaller birds at first the farmers who instituted the barbed wire wondered how so many grasshoppers beetles field mice and small birds became impaled upon the barbs of their fence wires they soon learned for the butcher bird is not a secretive creature when grass hoppers and other bugs were clenti ful he gathered great stores and stuck them on the barbs of the fences when hard times came the barbed wire fence was to him like a tree lunch counter ak now in winter time it Is no rare thing in parts of california to see the butcher bird hopping along the fence wires continually picking his meals as he skips from barb to barb |