262 INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 



Its habits are shy and retiring, and it renders itself 

 useful, and claims protection, by destroying mice around 

 the plantation, for which it sits and watches near the 

 rice stacks for hours together, seldom failing of its prey 

 as soon as it appears. Like most of the genus, he is also 

 well satisfied with large insects, crickets, and grasshop- 

 pers. He has no song, and Wilson and Audubon com- 

 pare his call to the creaking of a sign-board in windy 

 weather ; he probably, however, has the usual talent for 

 mimicry. The latter informs us, that the species begin 

 to pair about March, and show very little affection in 

 their mutual deportment. The nest is fixed in a low 

 bush, generally a hawthorn, and is but little concealed. 

 It is coarsely made of dry crooked twigs, and lined with 

 root fibres, and slender grass. The eggs, 3 to 5, are 

 greenish white. Incubation is performed by both sexes 

 in turn, but each bird procures its own food in the inter- 

 vals. They rear only one brood in the season. Its 

 manners resemble those of a Hawk ; it sits silent and 

 watchful, until it espies its prey on the ground^ when 

 it pounces upon it, and strikes first with the bill, in 

 the manner of small birds, seizing the object immedi- 

 ately after in its claws ; but it never attacks birds or 

 impales its prey like the preceding species.* 



The Logger-head Shrike is 9 inches long, and 13 in alar expansion. 

 Above dark grey ; the scapulars and line over the eye whitish. 

 Wings black, with a small spot of white at the base of the primaries, 

 and tipt with white. Forehead and sides of the head included in a 

 broad black band. Tail cuneiform, tlie 4 middle feathers wholly 

 black (in the adult ?), the rest more or less tipt with white, to the 

 outer one, which is nearly all white. Below white, sometimes (ac- 

 cording to age) marked with faint, waving, pale, dusky lines; the 

 sides tinged with brown. Iris dark hazel. Bill and legs black. — 

 The Female is somewhat smaller and darker. 



* Audubon, Cm. Biog. i. p. 300, 301. 



