XIT 
THE SHRIKE FAMILY 
(Laniide) } 
A SHRIKE is a pretty gray bird with white and 
black trimmings. He is nearly as large as a 
robin, and has a bill slightly hooked on the end. 
This is to help catch living prey, for he eats mice 
and other little mammals, besides grasshoppers, 
crickets, and sometimes small birds. 
This family have a curious habit of sticking 
dead grasshoppers, or mice, or other food, on a 
thorn, to keep till they are wanted. Because of 
this habit they have been called butcher-birds. 
The LoGGERHEAD SHRIKE, who is perhaps the 
most widely known, builds a bulky nest in a tree, 
and is very attentive to his mate while she is 
sitting. She looks exactly like him. 
He is a very quiet bird, and three or four or 
more of them may often be seen in a little party 
together, flying and hopping about in a tree, or 
1 See Appendix, 10. 
