552 IS IT A SORT OF STOREHOUSE? 



natural preference for some part of their prey, as the blood or 

 brains, to secure enough of which they take more lives than they 

 would if they fed upon the whole of the flesh. In the case of 

 the Shrike, moreover, it is certainly the rule that the bodies 

 are impaled after death, not while still struggling in the 

 clutches of the captor. 



Analogy goes for something in natural history; and the 

 analogy of the Shrikes' shambles to the storehouses of various 

 birds is too obvious to have escaped attention. I think the 

 right clue to the curious habit is thus found. Many birds lay 

 up stores of provisions, like mice and squirrels. Among those 

 of this country, birds of the Corvine tribe, as Crows and Jays, are 

 conspicuous in this respect. The "thievishness" of the Kaven 

 and Magpie in confinement is notorious; but it is simply the 

 excessive development or perversion of their habit of hoarding 

 food that makes them steal and hide away articles of no possible 

 use to them, such as jewelry and silverware. The Californian 

 Woodpecker offers another notable instance of storing up food, 

 as it does sometimes with infinite pains. I have seen branches 

 of trees studded thickly with acorns, each stuck tightly by itself 

 in a little hole bored by the bird for its reception. In other 

 instances, the same bird has been known to insert acorns in 

 the natural crevices of wood. These facts relate indeed only to 

 the hoarding of fruits or inanimate objects ; but we see a still 

 closer resemblance to the habit of the Shrikes in the curious 

 practice of the Eedheaded Woodpecker, a versatile bird, one of 

 whose singular traits has just been told by Mr. H. B. Bailey, of 

 New York. This writer narrates* that a correspondent of his 

 observed a Woodpecker's frequent visits to an old oak post, 

 which on examination was found to present a large crack, in 

 which the bird had inserted about a hundred live grasshoppers, 

 and wedged them in so firmly that they could not escape. 

 Some farmers showed him other posts which had been put to 

 the same purpose. This was certainly a laying-up of stores for 

 future use, for the writer states that the Woodpecker later began 

 to eat his hoard, and that at length only a few shrivelled dead 

 'hoppers were left. 



Wilson has observed, furthermore, that Jays and Shrikes 

 retain similar habits in confinement ; the Jay filling every seam 

 and chink in his cage with grain and bread-crumbs, and the 

 * Bull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, iii. no. 2, April, 1878, p. 97. 



