8o Birds Every Child Should Know 
flesh from his victim’s bones. He really looks 
like nothing but just what he is — a butcher-bird. 
See him, quiet and preoccupied, perched on 
a telegraph pole on the lookout for a dinner! 
A kingbird, or other flycatcher which chooses 
similar perches, would sail off suddenly into 
the air if a winged insect hove in sight, snap it 
up, make an aerial loop in its flight and return 
to its old place. Not so the solitary, sanguinary 
shrike. When his wonderfully keen eyes de- 
tect a grasshopper, a cricket, a big beetle, a 
lizard, a little mouse, or a sparrow at a distance 
in a field, he drops like an eagle upon the victim, 
seizes it with his strong beak, and flies with 
steady flapping strokes of the wings, close along 
the ground, straight to the nearest honey locust 
or spiny thorn ; then rises with a sudden upward 
turn into the tree to impale his prey. Hawks, 
who use the same method of procuring food, 
have very strong feet ; their talons are of great 
help in holding and killing their victims; but 
the shrikes, which have rather weak, sparrow- 
like feet, for perching only, are really compelled 
in many cases to make use of stout thorns or 
sharp twigs to help them quiet the struggles 
of their victims. Weather-vanes, lightning 
rods, bare branches, or the outermost or top 
branches of tall trees, high poles, and telegraph 
wires, which afford a fine bird’s eye-view of the 
surrounding hunting ground,are favourite points 
