CHAPTER XX. 



THE SHRIKES. 



More interesting than lovable: that in four words is pro- 

 bably the character which most ornithologists would give of 

 the shrike family. It is impossible to refuse a chapter to a 

 group of birds which, mainly by one variety, force themselves 

 on the attention of all wanderers over the hills and plains of 

 eastern China. The shrike is always with us. Not in dense 

 masses as we find the rook, not in family groups as we see the 

 hawfinches, or the longtailed tits, not in occasional collections 

 as we find larks in winter, but always singly or in pairs. The 

 shrike is not a sociable bird. He "gets on" after a fashion 

 with other birds of his size, but now and then one sees an 

 incident which tends to prove that there is little love lost 

 between him and the smaller birds. 



His family name carries its own condemnation, for his 

 Latin title, Lanius, means simply "the tearer, the lacerator, 

 the butcher", and it is as the butcher-bird that he is gener- 

 ally known to a large number of English people. His English 

 name "shrike" is merely a variant of the word "shriek", 

 and comes from the screaming nature of his cry of alarm. At 

 times, however, he can warble a by no means unpleasant 

 little ditty of his own. I have heard him many times when, 

 perfectly content with his day's hunting and sitting on some 

 convenient branch, outstanding so as to be clearly visible and 

 command an all round view, he has returned thanks to the 

 All-Giver before the close of day. Not infrequently this has 

 been in the winter time, when a warm afternoon, cloudless 

 and sunny, was being rounded off with a rosy glowing in the 

 west. Then a dainty little song from Lanius Schah, with his 

 ruddy chestnut back and strong curved beak, sounds as though 

 never in his life had he been guilty of the death of even the 

 meanest of God's creatures. And I must give him this much 

 credit, at least in this part of the world, I have never once 

 come across what is commonly known as a shrike's larder, the 

 thorn-bush where he sticks up the uneaten carcases of his 

 victims insects, small birds, mice, frogs, or what not. One 

 meets with hundreds of the red-backed shrikes in this and 

 the next province, and it seems certain that if they were in 

 the habit of putting their food into storage cold or warm 

 according to the season signs of it must be equally plentiful. 



