The Butcher-birds or Shrikes 
8i 
of vantage for both shrikes. When it is time 
to husk the corn, every farmer’s boy must have 
seen a shrike sitting on a fence-rail or hovering 
in the air ready to seize the little meadow mice 
that escape from the shocks. 
It is sad to record that sometimes shrikes also 
sneak upon their prey. When they resort to 
this mean method of securing a dinner they 
leave the high perches and secrete themselves 
in clumps of bushes in the open field. Luring 
little birds within striking distance by imitating 
their call notes, they pounce upon a terror- 
striken sparrow before you could say “Jack 
Robinson.” Shrikes seem to be the only 
creatures that really rejoice in the rapid increase 
of English sparrows. In summer they prefer 
large insects, especially grasshoppers, but in 
winter when they can get none, they must 
have the fresh meat of birds or mice. At 
any season they deserve the fullest protection 
for the service they do the farmer. Shrikes 
kill only that they themselves may live, and not 
for the sake of slaughter, which is a so-called 
sport reserved for man alone, who in any case, 
should be the last creature to condemn them. 
The loggerhead’s call-notes are harsh, creak- 
ing, and unpleasant, but at the approach of the 
nesting season he proves that he really can sing, 
although not half as well as his cousin, the 
northern shrike, who astonishes us with a fine 
