184 RED-BACKED SHRIKE. 
ground, not another chirp is heard from the nestlings, which 
have apparently received a signal to be quiet, although the 
parent birds, perched in a tree at a little distance, keep up 
a continual clamour.’ 
It has a habit of moving its tail rapidly from side to side, 
and twirling it round, when excited by the appearance of 
danger. It is easily tamed. 
The food of the Red-backed Shrike consists of mice, small 
birds, such as finches and others—one has been seen pursuing 
a blackbird—frogs and lizards, but principally of grasshoppers, 
beetles, dragon-flies, cockchaffers, and other insects. Occa- 
sionally they are taken in the nets of fowlers, in the act of 
striking at their decoy birds. They may usually be seen 
perched on some small isolated spray of a hedge or bush, from 
whence they dart after their prey, very much after the manner 
of the Flycatchers. In flying from one place to another, they 
first drop downwards, and after arriving at their destination, 
rise upwards again to the spot where they wish to perch. 
Most extraordinary is the manner of feeding of the Butcher- 
birds—whence their name. Occasionally, indeed, perhaps it 
may be that they are then unusually hungry, they hold the 
bird or insect they have killed between their claws, or fix it 
between two stones, or in some narrow place, and pull it to 
pieces after the manner of the Hawks, breaking the skull, 
and eating the head first as the most choice morsel. In 
general, however, after killing their prey, they fix it in its 
proper attitude on a thorn, or in the cleft of the small 
branches of a tree, and making these serve as the tenter 
hooks of a larder, garnish the hedge with their game, and 
consume it ‘secundum artem.’ Nay, it has been imagined 
that they also use such as baits to entice small birds within 
range; for otherwise the latter are shy of their company, and 
shew their dislike, if one approaches, by sonnds of anger or 
distress. They are said to have been known to pull young 
pheasants through the bars of a coop, and are strongly sus- 
pected of making free with the nestlings of other birds, when 
the parents are from home. 
In confinement their habit is the same with regard to their 
prey, as that of the preceding species. 
The indigestible part of the food is disgorged from the 
mouth of the Shrikes in smali pellets, after the manner of 
the Hawks and Owls. 
The Red-backed Shrike makes some pretensions to be a song 
