SHRIKES. ] 95 



swarm in hot climates ; and have also been named 

 Butcher-birds, from a fierceness and cruelty of dis- 

 position, which seems to lead them to kill and slay 

 from mere wantonness, together with a singular 

 habit of impaling their victims 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 project- 

 ing 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 extremely 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 manner 

 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 



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