The Lesser Shrike is smaller than the Great Shrike, but it is quite as beautiful and has the same deportment. Besides its smaller size, it is distinguished from its congener, by its black brow, the colour of which merges into that of the broad black stripe. The breast is a beautiful white, flushed with rose-colour. The white patch on the black wings is quite small. Otherwise the colouring is the same as that of the Great Shrike. Its nest is built in poplar trees bordering the highroad—sometimes in other trees. It employs sweet-scented plants in building the nest. It lays five or six pale green eggs, which have a speckled ring round the thicker end.
The Red-backed Shrike.
(Lanius collurio.)
This Shrike specially likes bushes at the side of a road, or the edge of a wood, and more particularly affects the whitethorn, or sloe bushes; but it sometimes ventures into gardens. It kills more than it can eat, so it impales the superfluous provender on thorns, so as to be ready when the bird feels hungry again, or when the weather is not favourable for hunting. So crickets, grasshoppers, cock-chafers, and, alas! also young birds, are sometimes found sticking on thorns. As this bird keeps to its own district, it robs the nests of the small birds in a scandalous way, including that of the White-throat.
Care, therefore, should be taken to keep this ogre at a respectful distance from the gardens; he does less harm in the open fields, as he there employs his energies on the mice.
It is a migrant, and departs at the beginning of autumn, returning not earlier than near the end of April. Wherever it is, its “Geck, geck, geck,” is frequently heard. Sometimes also “Treng, treng,” reminding us of the Sparrow. It imitates the song of other birds in a remarkable way, even that of the Nightingale, often in this way misleading both man and birds.
The Red-backed Shrike comes to Great Britain in May. It is the commonest of our own three species; but is becoming rarer each year in Lancashire and Yorkshire, being more often met with in the wooded parts of the Southern counties and in Wales. A handsome fellow, with his grey head, mantle of
PARTLY USEFUL.
