122 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



tore off its head, and loft the body dead in the cage. * * * On another occa- 

 sion, while a Mr. Lock in this vicinity was engaged in fowling, he wounded a 

 Robin, who flew a little distance and descended to the ground; he soon heard 

 the disabled bird uttering unusual cries, and on approaching found him in the 

 grasp of tlie Shrike. 



He snatched up the bird from its devourer; but having tasted blood, it still 

 followed, as if determined not to relinquish its proposed prey, and only desisted 

 from the quest on receiving a mortal wound. 



Dr. Brewer (Baird, Brewer, and Eidgway, 1874) writes : 



Its bold audacity and perseverance are quite remarkable, and are often dis- 

 played, in the fall, in the manner in which it will enter an apartment through 

 an open window and attack a Canary, even in the presence of members of the 

 family. * * * in one instance the writer was sitting at a closed window 

 reading, with a Canary hanging above him. Suddenly there was a severe blow 

 struck at the pane of glass near the cage, and the frightened Canary uttered 

 cries of alarm and fell to the bottom of its cage. The cause was soon explained. 

 A Shrike had dashed upon the bird, unconscious of the intervening glass, and 

 was stretched upon the snow under the window, stunned by the blow. He re- 

 vived when taken up, and lived several days, was sullen, but tame, and utterly 

 devoid of fear. 



Mr. Floyd (1928) writes: "Northern Shrikes are particularly de- 

 structive and annoying about a feeding or banding station. Their 

 audacity is well known. They do not hesitate to seize a bird newly 

 banded when it flies from the bander's hand, and they enter a trap, 

 barn, room, or hen-house with absolute unconcern when birds or mice 

 are seen there. In the trap they kill all the birds there before con- 

 sidering how they may escape or pausing to eat." He says that, "when 

 intent upon the capture of its next meal, the Shrike loses all sense of 

 fear of man," and tells how Mrs. Richard B. Harding ^vas unable to 

 drive one away from the vicinity of her trap, in which there were some 

 birds, "and only after she secured a broom and actually struck at the 

 intruder several times, did it give up and abandon the premises." 



In its summer home in Labrador, the northern shrike seemed to be 

 very tame, and we saw no signs of aggressiveness toward the few small 

 birds that live there; probably it was living largely on insects. On 

 August 18, 1912, 1 watched one for some time in Dr. Hettasch's small 

 garden and in the woods around it. It was flying in its direct slow 

 flight from one tree to another, or perching on a topmost twig, its body 

 held erect, and flirting its tail up and down, or holding it straight out 

 behind horizontally. Occasionally it darted out from its perch to 

 chase some flying insect, or dropped down to the lower branches of a 

 larch, where it seemed to be feeding on the buds and tender shoots, 

 though probably it was finding insects there. When making a longer 

 flight to a more distant tree, it flew more swiftly in a slightly undulat- 

 ing course, alternating a few rapid wing strokes with downward glides 

 in woodpeckerlike curves. If flying lovv', as it often did, as if to keep 



