284 THE RED-BACKED SHRIKE. 



The song of the red-backed shrike is both melodious and 

 continuous. It imitates in a wonderful manner that of 

 other birds which dwell in the vicinity ; and even if in a 

 cage, it mimics the notes of others of the feathered tribe 

 confined in the same room. 



This bird feeds principally on insects, such as coleoptera, 

 grasshoppers, horse-flies ; as also on young mice, young 

 birds, frogs and lizards. Birds in general devour their prey 

 at once, but the red-backed shrike (and English naturalists 

 tell us the like is the case with other shrikes), before com- 

 mencing its meal, transfixes the victim on the sharp thorn 

 of a bush, that it may be the better enabled to tear it in 

 pieces ; hence probably the English designation of butcher 

 bird, and the Swedish one of Torn-Skata. One not infre- 

 quently, indeed, meets with bushes that portion of them 

 near to the ground more especially, where this bird has its 

 resorts to which a large number of insects, as also either 

 whole or parts of lizards, frogs, mice, and small birds, are 

 impaled in the manner described. 



The red-backed shrike makes its nest in a thick bush. 

 The female lays five to six eggs, not very unlike in colour 

 those of the cinereous shrike. Whilst she is sitting, her 

 mate collects a quantity of such insects, &c., on which these 

 birds usually feed ; and these he fastens to the bush, round 

 and about the nest, for her subsistence. 



Kjaerbolling includes in the Danish fauna a fourth species 

 of shrike, the Wood-Chat (L. rufus, Briss.), found sparingly, 

 he says, in Denmark. 



The Spotted Flycatcher (Grd Flug-Snappare, or Grey 

 Flycatcher, Sw. ; Muscicapa grisola, Linn.) was pretty 

 common in my vicinity ; as also over the greater part of 



