512 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



colonists, and, with the slightest protection from molestation, becomes so tame and 

 familiar that it approaches close to their dwellings, and perches round them and the 

 stock-yards in small families of from six to ten in number. " Nor is its morning 

 carol less amusing and attractive than its pied and strongly contrasted plumage is 

 pleasing to the eye. To describe the notes of this bird is beyond the power of my 

 pen, and it is a source of regret to myself that my readers cannot, as I have done, 

 listen to them in their native wilds." 



Somewhat timaliine in the fluffy plumage of the back, which forms a thick and 

 soft covering of the rump, the Malaconotrinae, African and Indian forms, generally 

 like shrikes, but often very gorgeously colored, as for instance the brilliant cobalt blue 

 Cyanolanius madagascarinus, from Madagascar, and the African Laniarius, vane- 



FIG. 251. Lanius minor, lesser gray shrike. 



gated with orange, green, black, red, etc., lead us directly into the typical Laniinje. 

 These, the true shrikes or butcher-birds, like the foregoing families, are strictly Old 

 World birds, but a few forms closely related to species of the genus Lanius, from the 

 eastern hemisphere, have also invaded the Nearctic Continent, and become familiar 

 with us. In coloration they closely agree with the species figured in the accompany- 

 ing cut, the lesser gray shrike of Europe, which, on account of its shorter and less 

 graduated tail, is often placed in the genus Enneoctonus. Like the members of the 

 latter, the rufous shrikes, it is migratory, therein differing from the other gray species. 

 A characteristic feature in the history of these birds is their habit of storing insects or 

 mice for future use by fixing them on the thorns of the bushes and trees which they 

 frequent. This peculiar habit in the shrikes of thus spitting their food, Mr. Seebohm 



