This family have a curious habit of sticking dead grasshoppers, or mice, or other food, on a thorn, to keep till they are wanted. Because of this habit they have been called butcher-birds. The LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE, who is perhaps the most widely known, builds a bulky nest in a tree, and is very attentive to his mate while she is sitting. She looks exactly like him. He is a very quiet bird, and three or four or more of them may often be seen in a little party together, flying and hopping about in a tree, or on the ground, in the most amiable way. This shrike is a sweet singer, too. The song is not loud, but very pleasing. [Illustration: LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE] A great deal that is not true has been said about this bird. Some people seem to think he is in the habit of tormenting and killing little birds for fun, and he is called many hard names. But he does not deserve them. His way of keeping his food has been spoken of as if it were a crime. He lives generally on crickets, grasshoppers, meadow mice, and small snakes, besides cut-worms, cankerworms, and many others. He is extremely useful to farmers and cultivators on that account. Sometimes, when other food is scarce, he eats small birds, but they are by no means his usual food. I have watched a family of shrikes several times, and always looked very sharply to see if they touched birds. I have seen them eat many sorts of insects and grubs, and meadow mice, but never saw one disturb a bird. Other people who have watched them closely have told that their experience was the same. And writers about birds who study for themselves, and do not merely repeat what others have said, generally agree that the bird kills his prey before he impales it. More than that, the number of birds he kills is very small compared to the hosts of troublesome insects and small animals he eats. The conclusion of the Agricultural Department as to the food of shrikes all over the country is that it consists mainly of grasshoppers, and that the good they do is much greater than the harm, and therefore they should be protected. Mr. Keyser once saw a shrike catch a meadow mouse, and carry it up into a tree. First he killed it, and then tried to wedge it into a crotch so that he could eat it. But finally he found the sharp end of a broken snag, on which he fastened it. There is no doubt that the shrike impales his prey so that he can pull it to pieces to eat, for his feet are too small to hold it. I have seen a shrike throw a dead meadow mouse over a fence wire that had sagged to the ground, in order to get bits off to eat. A lady in New Hampshire who had a captive shrike tells in "Bird-Lore" that he was unable to eat a piece of meat until he could find a place to fasten it. He hopped around the room, looking for something, till she guessed what he wanted. Then she brought a kitchen fork with two tines. The moment he saw it he ran to her, hopped up on her hand, jerked his meat over the tines, and at once began to eat.