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He knew that there were many sharp eyes watching for him, and that he was more likely to be seen in the light of day than when the Black Shadows had crept all through the Green Forest. He would peek out of his doorway and watch for chance visitors in the daytime. Twice he saw Butcher the Shrike alight a short distance from the tree in which Timmy lived.
The thicket was his shambles, and if not interrupted, he might have had a fine display of titbits in a short time. The shrike is called a butcher from his habit of sticking his meat upon hooks and points; further than that, he is a butcher because he devours but a trifle of what he slays. A few days before, I had witnessed another little scene in which the shrike was the chief actor.
On some cold day, when the sun is shining, visit all the orchards of which you know, and see if in one or more you cannot find a good-sized, gray, black, and white bird, which keeps to the topmost branch of a certain tree. Look at him carefully through your glasses, and if his beak is hooked, like that of a hawk, you may know that you are watching a northern shrike, or butcher bird.
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.
"I have all of those and Blacky the Crow and Butcher the Shrike and Sammy Jay in winter, and Buster Hear and Jimmy Skunk and several of the Snake family in summer," replied Whitefoot. "It seems to me sometimes as if I need eyes and ears all over me. Night and day there is always some one hunting for poor little me. And then some folks wonder why I am so timid.
I left hermits and veeries, I said adieu to sandpipers and grosbeaks, and went to the village to abide with the shrike family.
In the valley, as I crossed the railroad track, a loggerhead shrike sat, almost of course, on the telegraph wire in dignified silence; and just beyond, among the cabins, I had my choice of mocking-birds and orchard orioles.
Drill, sexual difference of colour in the. Dromaeus irroratus. Dromolaea, Saharan species of. Drongo shrike. Drongos, racket-shaped feathers in the tails of. Dryness of climate, supposed influence of, on the colour of the skin. Dryopithecus. Duck, harlequin, age of mature plumage in the; breeding in immature plumage. Duck, long-tailed, preference of male, for certain females.
The shrike is said to catch mice, but it is not known to attack squirrels. He certainly could not have strangled the chipmunk, and I am curious to know what would have been the result had he overtaken him. Probably it was only a kind of brag on the part of the bird, a bold dash where no risk was run. He simulated the hawk, the squirrel's real enemy, and no doubt enjoyed the joke.
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.
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