SHRIKES. 159 



swarm in hot climates ; and have also been named Butcher- 

 birds, from a fierceness and cruelty of disposition which seems 

 to lead them to kill and slay from mere wantonness, together 

 with a singular habit of impaling their victim on thorns or 

 cleft branches, where they are left. 



In this savage character they resemble the birds of prey we 

 have just noticed. In the form of their beak, too, there is a 

 close resemblance, it being short, arched, and furnished with 

 a strong projecting tooth near the tip, which is acute, and 

 very analogous to the true Falcons. But they, at the same 

 time, differ so essentially in other points, that some modern 

 naturalists have removed them into a distinct class. Their 

 limbs, for example, are very different from the Eagle and 

 Hawk tribe, the toes being slender, and the claws comparatively 

 weak. But although slender, their pressure is nevertheless 

 powerful, and the bite they can inflict with their bill ex- 

 tremely severe, and capable of drawing blood from a man's 

 finger in an instant. The uses of the separate qualities of the 

 claws and bill are seen from the mode in which they seize 

 their prey : if, for instance, it is an insect, they pounce down, 

 secure it with their sharp notched bill, and then press it under 

 their feet to eat it ; but when coming down on a bird or a 

 mouse which they have pursued for some distance, they settle 

 their feet on the head of the object pursued, at the same 

 moment that they strike it with their bill ; and in this man- 

 ner one was seen carried a very considerable distance by a 

 dove, on which it had fastened itself by its beak and feet. 

 They differ again from the Eagles and Falcons respecting the 

 treatment of their young ; the Falcon tribe invariably driving 

 them off to shift for themselves as soon as they are full grown, 

 and capable of getting their own living ; whereas the Shrikes, 

 although cruel to a degree in their general habits, show a marked 

 attachment, and of long continuance, to their young ; and are 

 indeed, in all respects, as far as concerns each other, the most 

 amiable birds imaginable. They never drive them off, but live 

 together on the best terms till the following season, when they 

 separate by the instinctive laws of nature, each to procure its 

 mate. This, we are sorry to say, is the only redeeming good 



