LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 131 



prey to a clump of spruces further up the channel where there must 

 have been a brood of young. On one occasion the bird was carrying 

 a redpoll, but usually it was a lemming or meadow mouse. Once he 

 had grasped in his claws a lemming so heavy that it dragged in the 

 water as the bird flew laboriously across the river." The stomach 

 of an adult collected by Mr. Swarth (11)2G) held insect remains. 

 Behavior. — Ernest T. Seton (1911) writes: 



One afternoon I heard a peculiar note, at first like the "cheepy-teet-tecV of 

 the Pine Grosbeak, only louder and more broken, changing to the jingling of 

 Bhiekbirds in spring, mixed with some Bluejay "jay-jays," and a Robin-like 

 whistle; then I saw that it came from a Northern Shrike on the bushes just 

 ahead of ns. It flew off much after the manner of the Summer Shrike, with 

 llight not truly uudulatory nor yet straight, but Happing half a dozen times — then 

 a pause and repeat. He would dive down nf ar the ground, then up with a fine 

 display of wings and tail to the next perch selected, there to repeat with fresh 

 variations and shrieks, the same strange song, and often indeed sang it on 

 the wing, until at last he crossed the river. 



S. F. Rathbun (1931) says: "On one occasion we paced this shrike 

 in flight. For more than a mile the bird flew alongside the road or 

 over it and in front of us as we drove, at no time distant more than 

 one hundred feet. The shrike was flying at the rate of tliirty-two 

 miles when we first contacted it, but as we kept up Avith it the bird 

 imperceptibly increased its speed to forty-two miles, and once for an 

 instant reached forty-five miles. 



"This test was very fair. There was no wind blowing, and the 

 shrike maintained an almost direct flight either in front of, or nearly 

 at the side of the automobile." 



LANmS LUDOVICIANUS LUDOVICIANUS Linnaeus 



LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 



HABITS 

 CONTETBUTED BY ALEXANDER SpKUNT, Jr. 



Among the earliest ornithological memories of the writer is the 

 search for nests of the "French mockingbird" amid the myrtle bushes 

 of the back beach of Sullivans Island, near Charleston, S. C. On this 

 narrow barrier of sea sand, which has figured so largely in history 

 since the days when Sir Peter Parker's fleet was turned away by the 

 batteries of palmetto-logged Fort Moultrie, many Low Country bird 

 records have helped make ornithological fame locally. It was a happy 

 hunting ground for several kindred spirits of schoolboy days, and 

 birds' eggs were mediums of exchange for various and sundry other 

 specimens of beach and marsh. In few other areas since has the 

 writer ever found the loggerhead shrike such a characteristic bird 

 and will always associate it with this spot for it was among the first 



