(_Lanius borealis_) Shrike family
_Called also_: BUTCHER-BIRD; NINE-KILLER
_Length_--9.5 to 10.5 inches. About the size of the robin.
_Male_--Upper parts slate-gray; wing quills and tail black,
edged and tipped with white, conspicuous in flight; a white
spot on centre of outer wing feathers. A black band runs from
bill, through eye to side of throat. Light gray below, tinged
with brownish, and faintly marked with waving lines of darker
gray. Bill hooked and hawk-like.
_Female_--With eye-band more obscure than male's, and with more
distinct brownish cast on her plumage.
_Range_--Northern North America. South in winter to middle portion of
United States.
_Migrations_--November, April. A roving winter resident.
"Matching the bravest of the brave among birds of prey in deeds of
daring, and no less relentless than reckless, the shrike compels that
sort of deference, not unmixed with indignation, we are accustomed to
accord to creatures of seeming insignificance whose exploits demand
much strength, great spirit, and insatiate love for carnage. We cannot
be indifferent to the marauder who takes his own wherever he finds
it--a feudal baron who holds his own with undisputed sway--and an ogre
whose victims are so many more than he can eat, that he actually keeps
a private graveyard for the balance." Who is honestly able to give the
shrikes a better character than Dr. Coues, just quoted? A few offer
them questionable defence by recording the large numbers of English
sparrows they kill in a season, as if wanton carnage were ever
justifiable.
Not even a hawk itself can produce the consternation among a flock of
sparrows that the harsh, rasping voice of the butcher-bird creates,
for escape they well know to be difficult before the small ogre swoops
down upon his victim, and carries it off to impale it on a thorn or
frozen twig, there to devour it later piecemeal. Every shrike thus
either impales or else hangs up, as a butcher does his meat, more
little birds of many kinds, field-mice, grasshoppers, and other large
insects than it can hope to devour in a week of bloody orgies.
Field-mice are perhaps its favorite diet, but even snakes are not
disdained.
More contemptible than the actual slaughter of its victims, if
possible, is the method by which the shrike often lures and sneaks
upon his prey. Hiding in a clump of bushes in the meadow or garden, he
imitates with fiendish cleverness the call-notes of little birds that
come in cheerful response, hopping and flitting within easy range of
him. His bloody work is finished in a trice. Usually, however, it must
be owned, the shrike's hunting habits are the reverse of sneaking.
Perched on a point of vantage on some tree-top or weather-vane, his
hawk-like eye can detect a grasshopper going through the grass fifty
yards away.
What is our surprise when some fine warm day in March, just before our
butcher, ogre, sneak, and fiend leaves us for colder regions, to hear
him break out into song! Love has warmed even his cold heart, and with
sweet, warbled notes on the tip of a beak that but yesterday was
reeking with his victim's blood, he starts for Canada, leaving behind
him the only good impression he has made during a long winter's visit.