SONG-BIRDS. Shrike 



movements are guided by the food supply, and if severe 

 cold and heavy snows drive away the small birds and bury 

 the mice upon which it feeds, the Shrike must necessarily 

 rove. 



Grasshoppers, beetles, other large insects, and field mice 

 are staple articles of its food in seasons when they are ob- 

 tainable ; in fact, next to insects, mice constitute the staple 

 article of its diet, and protection should be accorded it on 

 this account, even though we know the Shrike chiefly as 

 the killer of small birds. The victims are caught by two 

 methods : sneaking, after the fashion of Crows, and 

 dropping upon them suddenly from a height like the small 

 Hawks. In the former case the Shrikes frequent clumps of 

 bushes, either in open meadows or gardens, lure the little 

 birds by imitating their call notes, and then seize them as 

 soon as they come within range. They often kill many 

 more birds than they can possibly eat at a meal, and hang 

 them on the spikes of a thorn or on the hooks of a cat-briar 

 in some convenient spot, until they are needed, in the same 

 manner as a "butcher hangs his meat, and from this trait the 

 name Butcher-bird was given them. 



Their depredations are by no means confined to lonely 

 fields and gardens. I was told by a friend living in Chicago, 

 that last winter a Shrike visited her back yard regularly in 

 search of English Sparrows. He would hide in the bushes, 

 and, after killing half a dozen Sparrows, impaled them on 

 the frozen twigs of a lilac bush. After they had hung a 

 few days, he eat portions of them, and then proceeded to 

 kill more, a proceeding for which he should receive un- 

 limited applause. 



In the Hawk-like method of killing, the Shrike sits motion- 

 less upon the bare branch of a high tree, and, as the little 

 birds pass unconsciously underneath, he drops upon one 

 with unerring aim. He will also try to seize cage birds 

 that are hung out of doors or even inside the window. 

 Last spring I was startled by a violent blow, struck upon a 

 window near which a Canary's cage stood upon a chair. 

 The Canary was trembling with fright, and on going outside 



123 



