RED-BACKED jjHRIKE. 155 



tlie Grey Shrike, last described, but is much more common, 

 and visits this country only in the summer. It arrives in 

 Italy from Africa about the beginning of April, and reaches 

 England by the end of that month or early in May, quit- 

 ting it again in September. It frequents the sides of woods 

 and high hedge-rows, generally in pairs, and may frequently 

 be seen perched on the uppermost branch of an isolated bush 

 on the look-out for prey. The males occasionally make a 

 chirping noise, not unlike the note of the Sparrow ; Mon- 

 tagu mentions having heard them give utterance to a sort of 

 song ; and M. Vieillot says they imitate the voice of small 

 birds. The food of the Red-backed Shrike is mice and 

 probably shrews, small birds, and various insects, particu- 

 larly the common May-chaffer. Its inclination to attack 

 and its power of destroying little birds has been doubted ; 

 but it has been seen to kill a bird as large as a Finch, is 

 not unfrequently caught in the clap-nets of London bird- 

 catchers, having struck at their decoy birds, and is recorded 

 in the Linnean Transactions as having been seen in pursuit 

 of a Blackbird.* Mr. Hewitson says, " Seeing a Red-backed 

 Shrike busy in a hedge, I found, upon approaching it, a 

 small bird, upon which it had been operating, firmly fixed 

 upon so blunt a thorn, that it must have required consider- 

 able force : its head was torn off, and the body entirely 

 plucked." Mr. Knapp, in his Journal of a Naturalist, says 

 of this bird, " Yet it appears that it must be a butcher too, 

 and that the name lanius,-\ bestowed on it by Gesner two 

 hundred and fifty years ago, was not lightly given. My 

 neighbour's gamekeeper kills it as a bird of prey, and tells 

 me he has known it draw the weak young Pheasants through 

 the bars of the breeding coops." In confinement, these birds 

 lodge their food on the perch or between the wires of their 

 cage ; and portions of insects, and other remains of their 



* Vol. XV. p. 14. t Laiiius, a butcher. Lanio, to cut or tear in pieces. 



