246 REDBACKED-SHRIKE 



young hawks. So perhaps the shrike may occasionally pick and 

 choose, whereas in times of scarcity, or when the young become 

 clamorous, he will be forced to clean out his larder and start 

 afresh. 



The courtship of the shrikes has been graphically described by 

 Mr. Kearton as follows : " One morning I watched a pair of red- 

 backed-shrikes sweethearting, and the antics of the male were both 

 amusing and interesting. He flew up into a tolerably high oak and 

 began to shake his wings, which he allowed to droop loosely by his 

 side, as if he were stricken with palsy. The female followed, and, 

 perching close beside her lord and master, listened attentively to some 

 poor attempts at a warbling kind of song, which was accompanied by 

 an awkward sort of dance. When this entertainment had lasted for 

 half a minute or so, the gay Lothario flung himself headlong from his 

 perch and sailed through the air with outstretched wings to another 

 coign of vantage, evidently for the express purpose of showing off the 

 richly coloured plumage of his upper parts. He then began to quiver 

 his drooping wings all over again, and if his companion did not 

 immediately join him he returned to fetch her. Once or twice he flew 

 down to the ground, and picking up a dainty morsel of food, flew back 

 and gave it to his sweetheart in the most gallant manner. During 

 their love-making they wandered along a hedgerow close past me, as 

 I stood perfectly still with my back against a big tree. They had not 

 got far past, when they accidentally stumbled upon a blackbird's nest, 

 containing young ones, and were promptly mobbed by its owners, 

 who "spink, spink, spinked" just as loudly and angrily as if a cat had 

 intruded itself upon them and their offspring." 1 



The redbacked-shrike returns to its old nesting-site year after 

 year if unmolested. The Duchess of Bedford mentions a bird of this 

 species with an injured foot, which returned three years in succession 

 to the same bush. 2 In a certain well-protected garden, for five or six 

 years in succession, I was always certain of finding a nest in a clump 



1 Wild Life at Home, p. 53. * British Birds, vol. iii. p. 100. 



