HOW THE SHRIKE HUNTS. 



Every boy considers the shrikes fair game. He may pop 

 pistols and snap slingshots at them in virtuous indignation, 

 because they are so cruel to the little birds. It is generally 

 believed that they love to torture little birds, and have a habit 

 of hanging them all alive on thorns, and that they are barbar- 

 ously cruel. 



Is it not true that the reason why we think the shrike 

 a bad fellow is not so much because we pity the little 

 birds, as because we feel that if he were only big enough he 

 would like to hang us up on hooks too ? We make a bug-a-boo 

 out of the shrike when really he is not a particle more cruel 

 than the crow or the blackbird, not to mention the hawks and 

 owls. 



Let us do him justice. He does not torture his victims, 

 but kills them speedily by pecks on the head, or by throttling 

 them ; he does not hang them up alive ; and though he kills 

 more than he needs, he does not seem to do it wantonly, but 

 tidily hangs up the carcass where he can find it some day 

 when he needs food. 



Here is a picture of an English sparrow killed and hung up 

 by a great northern shrike in the fork of an alder twig, 

 drawn from nature so that you may be sure it is correct. 

 It is an honest witness to the fact that the sparrow was dead 

 when dropped into the fork of the branch. Had a spark of 

 life remained, he must have fluttered out of such a wide-angled 

 crotch of a tree which has no thorns or side limbs to hold the 



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