SHRIKES. 
159 
swarm in hot climates ; and have also been named Butcher- 
birds, from a fierceness and cruelty of disposition which seems 
to lead them to kill and slay from mere wantonness, together 
with a singular habit of impaling their victim 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 projecting 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 hill ex- 
tremely severe, and capable of drawing blood from a man’s 
finger in an instant. The uses of the separate qualities of the 
claws and hill 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 ; hut 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 hill ; and in this man- 
ner 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 Falcons respecting the 
treatment of their young ; the Falcon tribe invariably driving 
them off to shift for themselves as soon as they are full grown, 
and capable of getting their own living, whereas the Shrikes, 
although cruel to a degree in their general habits, show a marked 
attachment, and of long continuance, to their young ; and are 
indeed, in all respects, as far as concerns each other, the most 
amiable birds imaginable. They never drive them off, but live 
together on the best terms till the following season, when they 
separate by the instinctive laws of nature, each to procure its 
mate. This, we are sorry to say, is the only redeeming good 
