The Children's Book of Birds

by Olive Thorne Miller

FOOTNOTE:

[10] See [Appendix, 9].

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XII

THE SHRIKE FAMILY

(Laniidæ)[11]

A shrike is a pretty gray bird with white and black trimmings. He is nearly as large as a robin, and has a bill slightly hooked on the end. This is to help catch living prey, for he eats mice and other little mammals, besides grasshoppers, crickets, and sometimes small birds.

This family have a curious habit of sticking dead grasshoppers, or mice, or other food, on a thorn, to keep till they are wanted. Because of this habit they have been called butcher-birds.

The Loggerhead Shrike, who is perhaps the most widely known, builds a bulky nest in a tree, and is very attentive to his mate while she is sitting. She looks exactly like him.