180 GREAT SHRIKE. 
Its food consists of shrew and other mice, smal! birds, and 
occasionally even partridges, fieldfares, and other larger ones; 
lizards, frogs, as also the larger insects and grasshoppers; and 
they are said to resort to the same thorn on which to fasten 
their captures. In carrying a mouse or a bird some distance 
they have been seen to shift it alternately from the bill to 
the mouth, as an alleviation of the weight. | 
In the spring they are noisy. It is said that they imitate 
the notes of small birds for the purpose of luring them to 
their destruction, but I cannot myself entertain this suppo- 
sition. One of their notes resembles that of the Kestrel, and 
it changes ‘ad libitum’ from the ‘forte’ to the ‘piano.’ Meyer 
says, ‘the call of this bird sounds like the words ‘shack, shack,’ 
and ‘truewee’ is one of its spring notes: it is also said to 
sing very pleasingly a sort of warbling song.’ Mr. Knapp 
says that these birds breed annually near his residence, in the 
neighbourhood of Thornbury, I believe, in Gloucestershire; 
and the Rev. N. Constantine Strickland, at the foot of the 
Prestbury hills, near Cheltenham. Lewin too has said that 
he had seen them in Wiltshire, and had no doubt of their 
breeding there. 
While the hen is sitting, the male is very vociferous if any 
one approaches the nest, and when the young are hatched 
both exhibit a clamorous anxiety which often defeats their 
object, and betrays their callow brood to the callous bird- 
nester. The young indeed themselves join in the untoward 
imprudence. 
The nest is built in trees, hedges, or bushes, some height 
above the ground. It is large and ill-concealed, but well put 
together; and is composed of grass, hay, small roots, stalks, 
and moss; and lined with wool or down, or finer parts of 
the outside materials. 
The eggs are four or five, and sometimes it is said, as many 
as six or seven in number. ‘They are of a greyish, bluish, 
or yellowish white ground colour, spotted at the thicker end 
with different shades of grey and light brown, forming an 
irregular band—the character of the eggs of all the Shrikes. 
Male; weight, a little above two ounces; length, from nine 
to ten inches; the upper bill is bluish black at the base, and 
there is a strong projection near its point, which is much 
hooked; the lower one yellowish brown at the base, brownish 
black at the tip; a black streak runs from it to the eye, and 
% narrower one under the eye: over the former is a streak 
