198 SHRIKES. 



serious apprehensions were entertained for any re- 

 newal of vegetation which the rains might promote, 

 when the locust-hirds made their appearance in vast 

 flocks, and successfully interfered. The writer adds, 

 that their mode of attacking, and destroying, and 

 impaling these destructive insects, was quite extra- 

 ordinary, and far surpassed all human efforts. 



Mr. Selby, a celebrated English naturalist, was 

 fortunate enough to see the whole process of pin- 

 ning a Hedge-Sparrow by one of these Butcher-birds. 

 Having seized his victim, he immediately killed it, 

 and then hovered with it in his bill for a short time 

 over the hedge, apparently occupied in selecting a 

 thorn suited to his purpose. Upon disturbing it, 

 and advancing to the spot, he found the Sparrow 

 already firmly fixed by the tendons of the wing, at 

 the selected twig. In another instance, a Shrike 

 was observed busily occupied near a thorn-hedge: 

 o'n examination, three frogs, and as many mice, were 

 found regularly spitted on thornSc With the design 

 of catching this Butcher-bird, six very small steel 

 traps were set, baited with mice. On the following 

 day, two of the traps were found to be sprung, 

 and the baits gone. As it was not an easy matter 

 to accomplish this without being caught, the traps 

 were then watched. At length, the Shrike ap- 

 proached, and. darting down, was rising perpendi- 

 cularly with his prize; but in this instance, not- 

 withstanding the celerity of his movements, the 

 teeth of the trap caught his claws, and secured him 

 by two of the toes. The bird was put in a room, in 

 which a thorn- bush was placed, and some dead mice 



