SHRIKES. 115 



New Holland (Vanga destructor, TEMM.), after 

 strangling a mouse, or crushing its skull, double 

 it through the wires of its cage, and with every 

 demonstration of savage triumph proceed to tear 

 it limb from limb, and devour it.* Mr. Swain- 

 son, alluding to the rapacity and power of the 

 Laniadce, remarks that the comparisons fre- 

 quently drawn between them and the Falconidce, 

 are no less true in fact, than beautiful in analogy ; 

 for that many of the latter sit on a tree for hours, 

 watching for such little birds as may come within 

 reach of a sudden swoop, when pouncing on the 

 quarry, they seize it in their talons, bear it to 

 their roost, and devour it piecemeal* These, he 

 adds, are precisely the manners of the true 

 Shrike ; yet, with all this, the structure of the 

 Falcons and Shrikes, and their more intimate 

 relations are so different, that these birds cannot 

 be classed in the same Order, though they illus- 

 trate that system of symbolic relationship termed 

 analogy, which Mr. Swainson believes to pervade 

 creation ; yet the two groups are in no wise con- 

 nected, and there is, in consequence, no affinity 

 between them. 



In addition to what we have said of the cha- 

 racters which the beak presents in this Family, 

 we may add that the claws, as instruments of 

 capture, are peculiarly fine and sharp in the ty- 

 pical species, and this character pervades, more 

 or less, the whole Family. In general, also, the 

 tail-coverts have a tendency to be puffed out into 

 a soft and loose protuberance on the lower part 

 of the back ; in some, however, the shafts of these 

 feathers are stiff and prolonged. 

 * Pict. Mus. i. 303. 



