Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/88

72 plantar tendons, strikes its talons into the nearest. No other bird that I know of makes its attack in this way, except the birds of prey. The little bird shrieks and struggles, but the cruel Shrike holds fast and hammers at the victim's head with its strong beak until it is dead, then flies away with it to some thornbush which is its larder. There it hangs it up on a thorn and leaves it to get tender. Hence its popular name of Butcher Bird. This is no fable. I have seen the bird do it.

The Red-backed Shrike (Lanius erythronotus) is the only kind commonly to be met with in Bombay. The large grey species (L. lahtora) and the handsome little Bay-backed Shrike (L. hardwickii, or vittatus), both so plentiful in the Deccan, do not like our moist climate. Occasionally, indeed, I have seen a young Bay-back, or a Brown Shrike, about the sea face near the Church Gate Street Station; but these were stragglers. Even the one species we have will not bring up its family in Bombay. It leaves us before the weather gets hot, and stays away till the rains are over. Its return in September is announced by much harsh, sad screeching. By this it may be recognised, and by its conspicuous white shirt front, long tail and grim black eyebrows. The top of its head and its shoulders and upper back are of a fine grey colour, but the lower part of its back is reddish. Its tail and wings are black. Though its usual cry is raucous and somewhat dolorous, the Shrike has a flexible voice and is not a bad mimic, I remember one particularly talented individual which lived in a friend's garden and used to entertain him with comic dialogues between bulbuls, lapwings and other birds. The Shrike