THE GREAT OR CINEKEOUS SHUIKE. 79 



The muscles which move the bill of this Shrike are very thick and 

 tstrong ; an apparatus that is peculiarly necessary to a species whose 

 mode of killing and devouring its prey is very singular. The Shrike 

 seizes the smaller birds by the throat, and thus strangles them ; and it 

 is probably for this reason that the Germans call him by a name 

 signifying " The suffocating Angel" When his prey is dead, he fixes 

 it on some thorn ; and, thus spitted, tears it to pieces with his bill. 

 Even when confined in a cage, he will often treat his food in much the 

 same manner, by sticking it against the wires before he devours it. 



In spring and summer, he imitates the voices of other birds, by 

 way of decoying them within his reach, that he may devour them; 

 excepting this, his natural note is the same throughout all seasons. 

 When kept in a cage, even where he seems perfectly contented, he 

 is always mute. 



Mr. Bell who travelled from Moscow, through Siberia to Pekin, 

 .says, thsit in Russia these birds are often kept tame in houses. He 

 had one of them given to him, and taught it to perch on a sharpened 

 -stick, iixed in the wall of his apartment. Whenever a small bird 

 was let loose in the room, the Shrike would immediately fly from hia 

 perch, and seize it by the throat in such a manner as almost in a 

 moment to suffocate it. He would then carry it to his perch, and 

 spit it on the sharpened end, drawing it on, carefully and forcibly, 

 with his bill and claws. If several birds were given him, he would 

 use them all, one after another, in a similar manner. These were sc 

 fixed, that they hung by the neck till he had leisure to devour them 

 'This uncommon practice seems necessary to these birds, as an equiv- 

 .alent for the want of strength in their claws to tear their food tc 

 pieces. From this they derive their appellation of Butcher -birds. 



In America, the Great Shrike has been observed to adopt an odo 

 stratagem, for the apparent purpose of decoying its prey. A gentle 

 man there, accidentally observing that several Grasshoppers were 

 stuck upon the sharp thorny branches of the trees, inquired the 

 cause of the phenomenon; and was informed that they were thus 

 spitted by this bird. On further inquiry he was led to suppose, that 

 linis was an instinctive stratagem adopted by the Great Shrike, in 

 order to decoy the smaller birds, which feed on insects, into a situa- 

 tion from which he could dart on and seize them. He is called in 

 America Nine-killer, from the supposition that he sticks up nine 

 Grasshoppers in succession. That the insects are placed there as food 

 to tempt other birds, is said to appear from their being frequently 

 left untouched for a considerable length of time. 



The female forms her nest of heath and moss, and lines it with 

 wool and gossamer. She lays six eggs; which are about as big as 

 those of a Thrush, and of a dull olive-green color, spotted at the end 

 with black. These birds are supposed to live to the age of five 01 

 six years; and they are much valued by husbandmen, on the suppo 

 sition that they destroy Rats, Mice, and other vermin. They inhabit 

 only mountainous wilds, among furze and unfrequented thickets, and 

 %re rarely found in the cultivated parts of our island. 



