154 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



unable to uncoil the snake until lie severed it with a pair of scissors 

 and released the badly frightened bird. 



Behavior. — The behavior of this si^ecies in foraging and impaling 

 its prey has been so fully described by Dr. Miller under the California 

 shrike, that it need not be repeated here.. Mr. Brewster (1938) 

 watched some of these shrikes in their normal behavior and says of 

 their flight : "On leaving their perches, whether the latter were fence 

 posts or telegraph poles, they invariably shot down at a steep angle, 

 as if aiming at some object on the ground and then skimmed off 

 swiftly across the field only a foot or two above the turf, rising and 

 falling in long, graceful but gentle (or shallow) undulations, moving 

 their wings very rapidly at the beginning of each upward curve and 

 then closing them for an instant just as a Woodpecker or Goldfinch 

 does when pursuing its similar 'galloping' flight. During the ex- 

 ceedingly rapid beat of the wings their light markings were alter- 

 nately displayed and concealed, giving a flickering effect as of a small 

 bit of looking-glass flashed in the sunlight." 



This shrike also has a conspicuous hovering flight, hanging suspended 

 in the air on rapidly vibrating wings, like the hovering flight of the 

 sparrow hawk while scanning the ground below in search of prey, its 

 wings serving only to hold it stationary in one spot. While perched, 

 it frequently raises and drops its tail, spreading it during the motion 

 and then closing it and letting it hang. 



Voice. — So much has been written about the song and other notes 

 of this species under the other subspecies that there are only two 

 items worth mentioning here. 



Harold M. Holland writes to me from Galesburg, 111. : "On a bright, 

 early May morning several years ago, having stopped my car opposite 

 a migrant shrike's nest in a hedgerow bordering a country road, I 

 became aware of an unfamiliar bird song close by and was surprised 

 to find that this emanated from the shrike occupying the nest. With 

 head slightly raised, it sang for two or three minutes, a low-pitched, 

 pleasing little jumble of notes that lacked the least trace of harshness, 

 as if singing softly to itself, in perfect contentment. Both the un- 

 usual 'song' and singing from the nest remain lone occurrences in a 

 long acquaintance with this species." 



Saunders and Dale (1933) heard a migrant shrike singing on the 

 wing in Middlesex County, Ontario, on May 24, 1928 : "On entering 

 the field we heard a clear whistle that reminded us of a Sandpiper's 

 note. On tracing this to its source we found the Shrike sitting on a 

 fallen dead apple tree. It flew as we approached and alighted on a 

 thorn bush. The next note resembled that of a Nighthawk. It flew 

 again and as it was on the wing it uttered a rolling call similar to 

 that given by the Bartramian Sandpiper, a bird which, by the way, 

 lives in the same field as the Shrike." 



