THE WOOD CHAT SHRIKE. 275 



shrieking and fluttering that they intimate the position of their nest to the least experienced 

 observer. 



Although the chief food of this bird consists of insects, it occasionally takes to larger game, 

 and has been known to destroy other birds, generally while in their nestling state. It has 

 sometimes been caught in fowlers' nets while striking at their decoy birds, and has been 

 detected in dragging young and weakly pheasants through the bars of the cage in which they 

 had been confined. 



I can also add the testimony of personal observation to the bird-destroying capabilities of 

 this Shrike. A few months ago a lady kindly presented to me a box containing several nest- 

 ling birds, each pierced by a thorn, which she said had been killed and stuck there by the 

 Red-backed Shrike. Thinking that there might possibly have been some mistake about the 

 slayer, I asked if it could be procured, and in a few more days another box was sent, con- 

 taining a fine Red-backed Shrike and another impaled victim. Most of the dead birds were 

 headless, and in every case the thorn, instead of transfixing the body, had been thrust between 

 the skin and the muscles, but in so firm a manner that to draw it out again required consid- 

 erable force. The victims were very small, and too much dilapidated for me to ascertain their 

 species. 



In most countries where it dwells, the Shrike is termed " Nine-killer," from a notion that 

 it always kills and impales nine creatures before it begins its meal. The generic name Enneoc- 

 tonus bears the same signification, and has been applied to the bird in allusion to this idea. 

 Mr. Blyth says that wherever food is very abundant, the Red-backed Shrike only eats the 

 soft abdomen of the impaled insect, leaving the wings, limbs, and hard parts on the thorns. 

 I have never observed this practice, although I have seen very many Shrikes, their nests, eggs, 

 and young. Still, however, it may be the case with individual birds. 



The nest of this Shrike is situated in hedges or bushes, generally from five to ten feet from 

 the ground, the average elevation being about seven feet. It is large, rather clumsy, and very 

 easily seen through the foliage, being made of thick grass-stems, moss, and roots on the 

 exterior, and lined with very fine grasses and hair. In some places the nests are quite com- 

 mon, and I have found three in a hedge surrounding a single field of no very great extent. 

 The eggs are generally five in number, and are rather variable in coloring, their ground color 

 being always white, tinged in some cases with blue, in others with green, and in a few speci- 

 mens with rusty -red. The spots with which they are marked are quite as variable, sometimes 

 being numerous, dark, and gathered into a ring at the large end of the egg, and sometimes 

 being only gray and light brown scattered irregularly. In all cases, however, they are gath- 

 ered upon the large end of the egg. 



In the adult male, the head, neck, and upper parts of the shoulders are pearly-gray, 

 with a black stripe across the base of the beak and running through the eye. The back 

 and wing-coverts are ruddy chestnut, fading into reddish-gray upon the upper tail-coverts. 

 The quill-feathers of the wings are black, edged with red upon their outer webs, and the 

 quill-feathers of the tail are white at the basal half, and the remainder of each feather is 

 black tipped with a very narrow line of white. The chin and under tail-coverts are white, 

 and the rest of the under surface is pale rusty -red. The strongly notched and hooked 

 beak is deep' shining black. The female bird may at once be known by the absence of 

 the black streak across the eye, which in her case is replaced by a light colored stripe 

 over the eye. The head and all the upper parts of the body are reddish-brown, and the 

 red edges of the wing-feathers are narrower than in the male. The under side of the 

 body is wholly grayish-white, covered with very numerous transverse lines of a darker hue. 

 The young male is similarly colored, but is distinguished by the back being also covered 

 with transverse bars of dark gray. The length of the adult bird is between seven and 

 eight inches. 



ANOTHER species of the same genus, the WOODCHAT SHRIKE, is about the same size 

 as the red-backed Shrike, and possesses many of the same habits, but may readily be 

 distinguished from that bird by the difference of coloring. 



