CHAPTER III. 



THE SHRIKE OR BUTCHER BIRD. 



IT is worth while to say something more in detail about 

 this same butcher bird before we dismiss him. The people 

 who always have a reason for a name, have very properly 

 called the little wretch butcher, for butcher he is in the very 

 worst sense of the term ! 



I specially wish to attract attention to some curious coin- 

 cidences between the apparent place of this bird on the scale 

 of animal life, and that last of all creatures with which it 

 would seem possible at first view to institute a comparison 

 at all I mean the humming bird. Now do not be startled 

 but hear what I have to say ! The humming bird is known 

 as the apparent link between insects and birds. There is a 

 moth so closely resembling it, which is found all the way 

 South from Pennsylvania that it requires an acute observer 

 to distinguish one from the other at the distance of a few 

 feet when they are feeding from the flowers, which they do 

 in the same way. 



Now the shrike is quite as evidently the connecting link 

 between the raptores or hawks, and song-birds, as the hum- 

 ming bird is the link between the song-birds and insects ! 

 The shrike resembles the hawk in its thirst for carnage and 

 manner of stooping upon its prey, except that, as it has not 

 strong claws like the hawk, it strikes with its strong beak. 

 It resembles the mocking bird so closely in plumage, that 

 older naturalists than I was at sixteen, have frequently con- 



