In summer I was never tired of watching this tree, since high up in one of the branches, which in those days seemed to me "so close against the sky," a scissor-tail tyrant-bird always had its nest, and this high open exposed nest was a constant attraction to the common brown carrion-hawk, called chimango-a hawk with the carrion-crow's habit of perpetually loitering about in search of eggs and fledglings.
"Far Away and Long Ago"
W. H. Hudson
He does not scissor his way across, but bit by bit sinks the tip of one jaw, hook-like, into the surface, and brings the other up to it, slicing through the tissue with surprising ease.
"Edge of the Jungle"
William Beebe
Do you hear that, you peanut-headed, scissor-shanked whelp?
"Shorty McCabe"
Sewell Ford