RUDDY-BREASTED BIRDS. 101 



to south-east Yorkshire, thence northward rare and 

 irregular ; Wales ; not in Ireland. 



The Red-Backed Shrike arrives in the south of 

 England early in May, and is a fairly common bird 

 there in wooded districts during summer. Having 

 no song worthy of the name, this bird is fortunately 

 sufficiently singular in form, colouring, and habits to 

 render it easy to identify. The bill, slightly hooked 

 and notched, looks like a hawk-bill in an incipient 

 stage, and it is put to hawk-like uses in preying upon 

 beetles, bees, mice, lizards, and small birds. In a 

 district affording the bird such sustenance, it will use 

 a high hedge or wooded slope for nesting purposes. 

 Perching at the hedge-top or in some equally 

 dominating situation, it watches the ground with 

 that attentive inclination of the head common with 

 Shrikes, and upon sighting prey, pounces down upon 

 it, and having devoured it, returns to its perch. If 

 its prey be not readily edible, the bird bears it to some 

 solid support and, holding it down with one foot, tears 

 it up like a hawk. At times the Shrike carries its 

 catch to a thorn often its nesting-bush and rams 

 it home on a long spine, then tears off pieces in 

 a direction at right angles to the axis of the spine. 

 Some of its captures are not eaten at once, and go 

 to form those ' larders ' of impaled insects, &c., which 

 have caused the Shrike to be called the Butcher-Bird. 

 At times this bird makes long or high excursions into 

 the air to capture some larger insect on the wing. 

 When attacked by other birds (those of the Swallow 

 tribe habitually harass it) it uses a low, chattering 

 note like that of a Kestrel. It has also a percus- 



