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A bird having a broad black band through the eye is probably a shrike, and if the bird in question habitually sits on an exposed branch or other point of vantage, and from thence swoops on to the ground to secure some insect, the probability of its being a butcher-bird becomes a certainty. Closely related to the shrikes are the minivets.
To Basil, Norman, and François, the thing was quite inexplicable, but Lucien understood well enough what it meant. All these creatures, he informed them, were placed there by the bird which François had shot, and which was no other than the "shrike" or "butcher-bird" a name by which it is more familiarly known, and which it receives from the very habit they had just observed.
He has no shelter if the storm descends suddenly; he has no dome of twisted straw well thatched and tiled to retreat to. The butcher-bird, with a beak like a crooked iron nail, drives him to the ground, and leaves him pierced with a thorn but no hail of shot revenges his tortures. No one cares for the humble-bee.
And at last, drifting away down to the outlet, they seemed to have given up fishing for the more interesting occupation. The clouds drifted on; the fish leaped; the butcher-bird called from the shore; the sun was purpling Lafayette. There were kinks in the leader that would not come out, the lines were inextricably tangled.
That is to say, the ballad or tale of the Bien-te-veo a species of tyrant-bird quite common in the country, with a brown back and sulphur-yellow under parts, a crest on its head, and face barred with black and white. It is a little larger than our butcher-bird and, like it, is partly rapacious in its habits.
I shall not say one word in favor of the next bird that I mention, the great Northern shrike, or butcher-bird. He is not an honest bird of prey that all the smaller feathered tribes know at a glance, like the hawk; he is a disguised assassin, and possessed by the very demon of cruelty.
This opinion is still subject to revision, but I find it easier to confirm it than to undermine it. But let me change the strain and contemplate for a few moments this feathered bandit, this bird with the mark of Cain upon him, Lanius borealis, the great shrike or butcher-bird. Usually the character of a bird of prey is well defined; there is no mistaking him.
Besides, he had heard the boom of a bittern that morning. And the day before he had seen a butcher-bird skimming low over the meadow. Those two, he knew, were every bit as dangerous as Henry Hawk. You see, Master Meadow Mouse had learned to expect birds to descend upon him from the air. It had never occurred to him that a bird would lurk on the ground, in wait for him.
Their habit is to sit on an exposed perch and pounce from thence on to some insect on the ground. The larger species attack small birds. Four species of butcher-bird may perhaps be classed among the common birds of the Himalayas; but they are inhabitants of the lower ranges only. It is unusual to see a shrike at as high an elevation as 6000 feet.
Some disturbance arose hereupon, for the Musk-rat began to make himself obtrusive, believing in the Owl's opinion of his powers, and feeling that he could have produced the honey if he had thought of it; until an experimental Butcher-bird proposed to anatomise him as a help to decision.
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