SHRIKES. 



the bird in its claws, and pulled it to pieces in the 

 manner of the Hawks; but seemed to prefer 

 forcing part of it through the wires, then pulling 

 at it. It always hung what it could not eat up on 

 the sides of the cage. It would often eat three 

 small birds in a day. In the spring it was very 

 noisy, one of its notes a little resembling the cry 

 of the Kestrel.* Bechstein, also, who has added to 

 our knowledge so many particulars of the manners 

 of birds in captivity, states of this species, that if 

 it be captured when it is old, mice, birds, or living 

 insects may be thrown to it, taking care to leave 

 it quite alone, for as long as any one is present it 

 will touch nothing ; but soon becomes more fami- 

 liar, and will eat meat, and even the universal 

 paste. An ounce of meat at least is eaten at a 

 meal, and there should be a forked branch or 

 crossed sticks in the cage, across the angles of 

 which it throws the mouse or any other prey, and 

 then darting on ,it behind from the opposite side of 

 the cage, devours every morsel. Repeated in- 

 stances have occurred of its voracity inducing it 

 to dart upon small birds hung up in cages, 



The imitative power attributed to the Shrike 

 may be not altogether a fiction : different authors 

 ascribe very different notes to it ; one resembling 

 the cry of the Kestrel is noted above ; Bechstein 

 speaks of its warbling much like the Grey Parrot, 

 the melody interrupted, however, by harsh dis- 

 cordant notes; and a writer in the "Naturalist" 

 compares some strains which he heard it utter to 

 the notes of the Stonechat, But while listening 

 to these, to his surprise, they were discarded, and 

 others adopted of a softer and more melodious 



* Brit. Birds, i. 158. 



