“The red-backed shrike is the smallest and the best-known of our shrikes. It is ash color on the head and rump, chestnut red on the back, and light red underneath. A black ring encircles the eye, the throat is white, and the large tail-feathers and wing-feathers are black. “These last three shrikes that I have named can at will imitate the various cries of small birds, and they make use of this talent, it is said, to lure them to their destruction. The red-backed shrike is especially expert in this. It first hides in some dense shrubbery and then imitates the song of whatever species it hears chirping in the neighborhood. The imprudent ones come at its call, which they think proceeds from one of their own kind, and the red-backed shrike pounces on them as soon as it has them well within reach. But this trick succeeds only with inexperienced little birds, the older ones knowing it and taking care not to be deceived. The captured bird is skinned before being eaten, and that is the origin of the French name (écorcheur, flayer) given to this fourth species of shrike. The others, however, share this habit. As they lack the faculty of rolling the feathers into a ball and throwing them up after digestion, as do the hornless owls, these birds take the precaution to prepare the game beforehand by tearing off the skin in shreds. It is a quick way of plucking their victim. Notwithstanding its talent in imitating the calls of other birds, the red-backed shrike is not so lucky as to make dupes every day. In case of failure the shrike contents itself with common mice, field-mice, grasshoppers, June-bugs, and fat beetles. Such is the shrike’s passion for beetles that when it has eaten all it can it continues to hunt them just for the fun of hunting; and, not knowing what to do with the captured insects, it impales them on the thorns of bushes. Perhaps that is its way of stocking its larder with food and letting it acquire a strong flavor like venison, a flavor much to its taste. “The other shrikes also have this mania for laying up reserves of beetles stuck on thorns, reserves which the bird does not always come back for, and which often dry up on the spot without being touched. But this waste of game is of little consequence, as the final result is always to our advantage: we are delivered from a multitude of foes by these eager hunters. When they do us such service shall we count it an unpardonable crime that they sometimes allow themselves the pleasure of feasting on little birds? For my part I should be very reluctant to do so. I pity with all my heart the poor little bird that foolishly lets itself be caught by the shrike; but I also have a lively sympathy for the beautiful tree which, if bereft of its defenders, would soon be given over to the worms and honeycombed with holes all packed with filth.