48 JUNGLE FOLK 



ground arrests his attention. In an instant he has 

 swooped and seized a grasshopper. A second later 

 he is back on his perch, grasping his victim. I have 

 already stated that shrikes feed upon small mammals, 

 birds and reptiles, and large insects. These last 

 make up by far the greater portion of his menu. Often 

 have I watched the smaller species of Indian shrike 

 obtaining a meal, but never have I seen any 

 of these capture anything larger than an insect. 

 Mr. W. Jesse says of the Indian grey shrike [Lanius 

 lahtora) — the largest of our species : "It feeds on 

 crickets, locusts, lizards, and the like. It may occa- 

 sionally seize a sickly or a young bird, but I have 

 never actually seen it do so." Other observers have 

 been more fortunate. Thus " Eha " says : " Sometimes 

 it sees a possible chance in a flock of little birds absorbed 

 in searching for grass seeds. Then it sHps from its 

 watch-tower and, gliding softly down, pops into the 

 midst of them without warning, and strikes its talons 

 into the nearest." Similarly Benjamin Aitken writes : 

 " The rufous-backed shrike, though not so large as 

 the grey shrike, is a much bolder and fiercer bird. It 

 will come down at once to a cage of small birds exposed 

 at a window, and I once had an amadavat killed and 

 partly eaten through the wires by one of these shrikes 

 which I saw in the act with my own eyes. The next 

 day I caught the shrike in a large basket, which I had 

 set over the cage of amadavats. " On another occa- 

 sion I exposed a rat in a cage for the purpose of 

 attracting a hawk, and in a few minutes found a Lanius 

 erythronotus fiercely attacking the cage on all sides," 



