SIIJIIKES. 197 



pensities; and with good reason, for it will conceal 

 itself in a bush, or perch itself on some upper spray, 

 to look out for prey; and, no doubt, avails itself 

 of the absence of the parent birds, in order to pil- 

 lage their nursery of nestlings; for a gamekeeper, 

 who was in the habit of rearing Pheasants, ob- 

 served, that if any of his brood were weak or sickly, 

 a Shrike would occasionally contrive to draw them 

 out, through the bars of the breeding-coops; and a, 

 gentleman who lived in a part of North America, 

 where several of them harboured, actually disco- 

 vered them taking his favourite singing-birds out of 

 the cages which hung by his window. 



Their usual food is, however, insects; but whether 

 birds, mice, or insects, the same singular propensity 

 has been remarked, that of frequently impaling the 

 object they have caught, on a thorn or pointed stick. 

 That it thus destroys, when opportunity occurs, a 

 far greater quantity of living subjects than it can 

 possibly consume, is unquestionable; for they have 

 been seen to be all day long seizing insects, as if 

 actuated by a desire of destroying life, rather than 

 procuring a store of food. This apparently w r anton 

 cruelty may, however, be turned to good account, 

 for we have no doubt, that it was by a species of 

 this bird, called the Collared- shrike (JLanius col- 

 far is), that the following check was given to a 

 plague of locusts. The account was sent from the 

 Cape of Good Hope, in 1829. During the Spring 

 of that year, the locusts abounded to such a degree 

 on the southern coasts of Africa, that the whole 

 country was completely ravaged, and the most 



