8o FLASHLIGHTS ON NATURE 



hold it conveniently as on a fork or skewer while 

 she pecks at it. Sometimes you will find the mice 

 fastened through the body, and gnawing the twig 

 with their teeth in their prolonged agony. But 

 the butcher-bird takes no notice of their writhings 

 and their groans : she treats them with the in- 

 difference of a fishmonger to lobsters. It is her 

 business to provide for her own young, and she 

 does it as ruthlessly as if she were a civilised 

 human being. 



The shrike's ordinary method of capturing prey 

 closely resembles that of the fly-catcher, to which, 

 however, it is not really related. The resemblance 

 is merely one of those due to similarity of habit. 

 Every well-conducted butcher-bird has a settled 

 perch or pitch on which he sits to watch and wait, 

 and to which he returns after each short excursion. 

 Flies and bees he catches on the wing, darting 

 down upon them suddenly with a swoop like a 

 kingfisher's ; but he also often takes them sitting, 

 especially when they are settled on a leaf or branch, 

 or are eating carrion. One of his most favourite 

 hunting-boxes is a telegraph wire, and he prefers 

 one that crosses the corner of a wood ; there he 

 will sit with his head held sapiently on one side, 

 keeping a sharp look-out from his beady brown 

 eyes in every direction. If a bee lights on a head 

 of clover, if a cockchafer stirs, if a mouse moves 

 in the grass, if a fledgeling thrush makes a first 

 unguarded attempt to fly woe betide the poor 

 innocent ; our butcher-bird is upon him, with a 

 fierce darting beak, and in ten seconds more, his 



