IG PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Grasshopper Sparrows I spent a good deal of time. One place 

 from wliich I could always Hush two pairs early in the summer 

 was a barren field of sparse grass below a IMoravian grave-yard. 

 They were frequently in the grave-yard, where I saw my solitary 

 Cuckoo, a Yellowbill, of the summer, and would sing from the 

 tomb-stones and from the fence-posts. But their favorite sing- 

 ing stations were the tops of dried mullein stalks in the barren 

 field. One windy June morning I lay here under the lee of a 

 stone wall for an hour watching them. I sought in vain for 

 their nests. All the places they dropped down into were ap- 

 jiarently only feeding-spots. They scratched up the small stones 

 in the field, presumably to get at some sort of insect life as well 

 as for grass-seeds, leaving decided traces of their energetic leg- 

 work. Every few minutes they would mount to the mullein- 

 tops with their curious fluttering flight as of young birds and 

 sing, sometimes the grasshopper note and sometimes a fuller song 

 that I can best represent by " tweedle-tee, tweedle-tee, tweedle- 

 t weedle-tweedle-tee. ' ' 



Climbing the Dutch Hill road that leads from the bottom to 

 the upland between Middle Branch and Levis Branch, you pass 

 a thistle-patch where Yellowbirds were always to be seen in late 

 summer, but all summer long wherever I went I heard them 

 .singing in the air as they dropped over. Further uj) this road 

 I saw on several days between August 8 when I saw it first, and 

 August 16 when I saw it last, a Shrike. Which shrike it was I 

 do not pretend to know, but very interesting it was to watch.* 

 For minutes at a time it would sit motionless on the top of the 

 single second-growth chestnut left where the wood-lot was cut 

 ofJ ; then spying some insect it would swoop down upon it, to 

 return with labored flycatcher-like flight to its chosen station. 

 Sometimes it must have missed its strike or found the prey so 

 small that it could gulj) it down without dismembering it, for it 

 would relight on its tower and take up the watch again, without 

 any sign of feeding. At other times I could see it carrying back 

 the insect. These times it would deftly insert the insect under 

 its foot and pressing it down to the limb tear it to pieces hawk- 



* lu all probability Limius Indimicianus migrans, the Migrant Shrike. — Ed. 



