“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. 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. “The black-headed shrike can be recognized, as its name indicates, by the wide black stripe that encircles the forehead. This bird is of about the lark’s size and has the plumage of the common shrike except on the stomach, which is reddish. The eggs, white tinted with red, have the ring at the large end formed of numerous little spots, red, brown, or violet in color. “The red shrike is slightly smaller. The top of its head and the back of its neck are bright red, the stomach and rump white. Otherwise the plumage is like that of the two species just described.