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.
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