184 RED-BACKEI) SHEIKE. 



groiind, 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 romid, 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 grasshoj)pers, 

 beetles, di'agon-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 miusually 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 tlie skull, 

 and eating the head first as the most choice morsel. In 

 general, however, after kilhng 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 sounds 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 

 tlie 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 small pellets, after the mxanner of 

 the Hawks and Owls. 



The Eed-backed Shrike makes some pretensions to be a song 



