CHAPTER XXVI
SHRIKES
“All sorts of absurd stories have been made up about the cuckoo and its curious habits, and thus fable has added to the actual facts, which are in themselves strange enough. Even to-day there are in circulation any number of fairy tales on the subject of this bird. I will tell you a few of them in order to put you on your guard against these childish notions.
“First, they say cuckoos change their nature twice a year, being cuckoos in the spring and sparrow-hawks the rest of the year. According to this account, the bird comes to us from some distant country in April in its first form on the back of a kite that is so accommodating as to serve it as a mount. This mode of travel is adopted by the cuckoo to spare its own wings, still too weak to carry it. Undoubtedly the bird’s plumage—which, as I have told you, resembles in its brown crosswise stripes on the breast the plumage of certain birds of prey—has fostered this popular belief in the changing of the cuckoo into a sparrow-hawk and of the sparrow-hawk into a cuckoo. People have allowed themselves to be deceived by this variegated dress. When the bird sings in April and May it is a cuckoo [[198]]because it has the cuckoo’s cry; but when it falls silent in summer it becomes a sparrow-hawk because it has the plumage of one. So the cuckoo is changed into a sparrow-hawk, and when spring comes again the sparrow-hawk is changed into a cuckoo once more. For thousands and thousands of years this nonsense has been believed by most people.
“The cuckoo is a migratory bird: it remains with us from April to September, but departs for Africa at the approach of winter. To explain its reappearance in the spring some one invented the story of its being carried on the back of a kite; but I need not assure you that there is not a word of truth in this fairy tale. The cuckoo is always a cuckoo, and it returns from warmer climes on its own wings, as does the swallow. Another legend is that the cuckoo turns into a toad.”
“Isn’t that because the cuckoo, when it is young and before it has any feathers, is very ugly and looks like a toad?” asked Jules.
“Exactly. And, finally, the bird is accused of discharging on plants a fatal saliva that breeds insects. The truth of the matter is that a tiny insect, light green and shaped somewhat like a grasshopper, is in the habit of pricking the stems of plants with its sucker to make the sap run; and this sap presents the appearance of a white foam that looks like saliva. The insect takes its position in the midst of this cool and foamy froth to shelter itself from the heat of the sun and to drink at its leisure. There you have the real facts in the case. [[199]]‘Cuckoo-spit’ is the name popularly given to the insect. It does little harm to plants. In reality, then, the supposed harmful saliva of the cuckoo is merely an ingenious means employed by an inoffensive little creature to keep itself cool. Many other ridiculous stories are told about the cuckoo, but it would be only a waste of time to dwell on them. Let us get on.
“We have already had occasion several times to speak of our doubtful helpers, those co-workers whose valuable services are offset by certain grave offenses. You have just seen how that devourer of hairy caterpillars, the cuckoo, is guilty of the blackest ingratitude toward the warbler, its nurse, in brutally throwing out of their nest the little birds which would have become model caterpillar-destroyers. That is a rather high price to pay for the destruction of oak-tree processionary caterpillars. To finish the list of these birds whose conduct deserves, from an agricultural point of view, both praise and blame, I will tell you about the shrike, a great insect-destroyer, but also a barbarous slaughterer of small birds.
“Despite their diminutive size—the largest shrike being hardly as big as a thrush—these birds have the fierce boldness of the most powerful birds of prey. They will even pursue any falcon that ventures near their nest. Their diet consists chiefly of large insects; but unfortunately they also pounce on little birds, greedily devouring their brains and afterward tearing their flesh to shreds and eating it too. [[200]]For this life of rapine they have a strong hooked beak, toothed toward the tip of the upper mandible, and powerful talons ending in sharp nails that resemble in miniature the claws of birds of prey. We have in this country four species of shrikes.
“The common shrike is of the size of a blackbird, and its plumage is ashy gray above and white underneath. A wide black stripe, starting from the beak, continues around the eye and runs down over the cheek. The wings and tail are black, ornamented with white. The bird likes to perch on lofty tree-tops, where it keeps repeating its cry of truee, truee, in a piercing tone. In flying from tree to tree it looks as if it were going to alight on the ground; but presently it rises again, describing a graceful curve in the air. Its food consists chiefly of field-mice and large beetles, but occasionally of small birds which it catches on the wing. It likes to build its nest in tangled and thorny hedges, and lays from four to six eggs, reddish in color and encircled toward the large end by a ring of brown spots. Similar rings are found placed in the same way on the eggs of our various other shrikes and furnish a distinctive and easily recognizable characteristic mark.