144 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL I^IUSEUIVI 



made long ago by one who knew the loggerhead well — the Rev. John 

 Bachman, of Charleston, S. C. It was this genial gentleman's obser- 

 vations that considerably augmented Audubon's account of the log- 

 gerhead in the Birds of America, the latter saying without reservation 

 that "my friend the Rev. John Bachman has had much better oppor- 

 tunities of studying them." In regard to the vocal efforts he (Bach- 

 man) wrote Audubon (1842) : "You say it has no song. This is true 

 in part, but it has other notes than the grating sounds you attribute 

 to it. During the breeding season, and indeed nearly all summer, the 

 male * * * makes an effort at a song, which I cannot compare 

 to anything nearer than the first attempts of a young Brown Thrush 

 * * *. At times the notes are not unpleasing, but very irregular." 



Yet another allusion to similarity with the thrasher's song comes 

 from A. L. Pickens, of Paducah, Ky., who writes (MS.) : "At times I 

 have had to pause and take note to determine whether the birds' notes, 

 softened in spring by the mating urge, and in fall and winter by dis- 

 tance, might not be thrasher, sparrow, or bluebird. 



A. T. Wayne (1910) states: "Although the song of this species is 

 considered by most ornithologists to be hard and unmusical, I have 

 heard a few individuals which sang very sweetly." 



Economic status. — Aside from its undoubted value to agriculture in 

 its considerable destruction of injurious small mammals and insects, 

 a fact well recognized by informed people, the loggerhead assumes 

 added importance to stockmen by reason of a comparatively recent dis- 

 covery. At the 1929 meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union 

 in Philadelphia, a paper was read by Dr. Eloise B. Cram (1930) deal- 

 ing with birds as factors in the control of a stomach worm in swine. 

 While the details of it cannot be quoted here it is of great interest to 

 note the conclusions reached. The investigation resulted "from the 

 discovery made by H. L. Stoddard several years ago that the Logger- 

 head Shrike {Lanius I. ludovicianus) in northern Florida, chiefly in 

 Leon County, and in southern Georgia, chiefly in Grady County, were 

 infested with large numbers of roundworms encysted in the wall of the 

 digestive tract. These parasites were identified by the writer as 

 spirurid larvae and the infestation as a case of aberrant parasitism 



* * * the larvae being in a host other than the correct final host 

 and therefore incapable of further development." Careful study was 

 undertaken of birds so infested, and it was found that the dung-beetle 

 {Phanaeus camifex) remains in shrikes' stomachs were "practically 

 one hundred percent heavily parasitized with the same larval round- 

 worm as was found in the shrikes." Extensive feeding experiments 

 were carried out in order to find the final host of the parasite, larvae 

 taken from shrikes being fed to a series of experimental animals. 

 Coming to the summary of tlie entire undertaking the writer quotes 

 Miss Cram again : 



