In winter you may often see a whole family of these pretty birds—father, mother, and ten or a dozen little ones—all flying about together, for they never separate until the spring.
The Shrike
A notable bird is the shrike, which is also known as the butcher-bird, owing to a most curious habit. It is a bird of prey, feeding upon all sorts of small creatures, and it seems to know that though it can catch plenty of these on warm, sunny days, they will all be hiding away in their retreats when the weather is cold and rainy. So on a fine, bright morning it will catch many more victims than it wants at the time, and put them away in its larder! Sometimes you may find a thorn-bush with four or five mice, half a dozen unfledged birds, two or three fat caterpillars, a big beetle or two, and perhaps a bumblebee, all stuck upon the thorns, like the joints of meat hung up in a butcher's shop. Then you may be quite sure that you have discovered a butcher-bird's larder. And by and by, when a cold and wet day comes, and the bird can catch no prey, it just comes and takes some of these creatures from the thorns, and so obtains plenty of provisions!
There are two species of shrike in the United States—one which visits us from the south in summer and the other from the north in winter.
Thrushes
The thrush family is spread all over the world, and contains some of the most noted of singing birds. No one can read English poetry, or much of the classic prose of our language, without meeting with the names of such birds as the mavis, the blackbird, the blackcap, and especially the nightingale, all European thrushes; even the English robin, after which our larger American redbreast is named, is a sort of thrush, closely related to our dear little bluebird.
The Robin
The robin is a great favorite with the people of Europe, because it is so very trustful. We have actually seen one of these birds perching on a man's knee for quite a minute, while it looked about for worms in a plot of ground which he had just been digging. But it is by no means so gentle a bird as many people think. In fact, it is a very quarrelsome bird, for if two cock robins meet they are almost sure to fight, and very often the battle goes on until one of the two is killed!
A robin once took up his abode in Hereford Cathedral, and seemed to think that it was his own private property. For one day, when another robin came in, he was seen chasing it all over the building, and was at last found sitting triumphantly on its dead body!
You may find the nest of the robin in a hole in a bank or a wall, or perhaps in the stump of a tree. It is made of dry leaves, roots, grass, and moss, lined with hair, or wool, and contains either five or six yellowish-white eggs, spotted with light brown.