180 GREAT SHEIKE. 



Its food consists of shrew and other mice, small birds, and 

 occasionally even partridges, fieldfares, and other larger ones; 

 lizards, frogs, as also the larger insects and grasshoppers ; and 

 they are said to resort to the same thorn on which to fasten 

 their captures. In carrying a mouse or a bird some distance 

 they have been seen to shift it alternately from the bill to 

 the mouth, as an alleviation of the weight. 



In the spring they are noisy. It is said that they imitate 

 the notes of small birds for the purpose of luring them to 

 their destruction, but I cannot myself entertain this suppo- 

 sition. One of their notes resembles that of the Kestrel, and 

 it changes 'ad libitum' from the 'forte' to the 'piano.' Meyer 

 says, 'the call of this bird sounds like the words 'shack, shack,' 

 and 'truewee' is one of its spring notes: it is also said to 

 sing very pleasingly a sort of warbling song.' Mr. Knapp 

 says that these birds breed annually near his residence, in the 

 neighbourhood of Thornbury, I believe, in Gloucestershire; 

 and the Rev. N. Constantine Strickland, at the foot of the 

 Prestbury hills, near Cheltenham. Lewin too has said that 

 he had seen them in Wiltshire, and had no doubt of their 

 breeding there. 



While the hen is sitting, the male is very vociferous if any 

 one approaches the nest, and when the young are hatched 

 both exhibit a clamorous anxiety which often defeats their 

 object, and betrays their callow brood to the callous bird- 

 nester. The young indeed themselves join in the untoward 

 imprudence. 



The nest is built in trees, hedges, or bushes, some height 

 above the ground. It is large and ill-concealed, but well put 

 together; and is composed of grass, hay, small roots, stalks, 

 and moss; and lined with w r ool or down, or finer parts of 

 the outside materials. 



The eggs are four or five, and sometimes it is said, as many 

 as six or seven in number. They are of a greyish, bluish, 

 or yellowish white ground colour, spotted at the thicker end 

 with different shades of grey and light brown, forming an 

 irregular band the character of the eggs of all the Shrikes. 



Male; weight, a little above two ounces; length, from nine 

 to ten inches; the upper bill is bluish black at the base, and 

 there is a strong projection near its point, which is much 

 hooked; the lower one yellowish brown at the base, brownish 

 black at the tip; a black streak runs from it to the eye, and 

 a narrower one under the eye: over the former is a streak 



