126 REMARKABLE INSTINCT 



bird catching grafshoppers and flicking them up hi the 

 manner aheady related, and that fometlmes they had 

 obferved, in places wliere this fpecies of bird keeps, 

 numbers of grafshoppers ftuck up on a thorn-bufh in 

 like manner. The Reverend Mr. V. Vleck is perfe£l- 

 ly fatisfied that this bird-hawk is the Lanius Canaden- 

 fis (in Bartram*), and has obligingly communicated 

 the following account of this little bird-hawk to me : 

 it is extradlcd from a German publication printed at 

 Gcettingen, in 1778, under the title of " Natural Hif- 

 tory for Children, by M. George Chriftian Paff," who 

 after giving a defcription of the different fpecies of this 

 bird, concludes thus : " Why is this bird of prey called 

 the nine-killer ? Becaufe it is faid to have the habit of 

 flicking beetles or other infedts, and perhaps fometimes 

 nine of them in fuccefTioa, upon thorns, that they may 

 not efcape until he has leifure to devour them all at once. 

 And for the fame reafon, it is fometimes called the thorn- 

 flicker." Now by the above account, we fee that it is 

 known in Europe that this fame fpecies of birds adlually 

 does flick up inledis of different kinds on thorns, &c. 

 but it is fuppofed they eat them immediately after being 

 fluck up. Here the cafe is quite otherwife. They re- 

 main fluck up, for we muft fuppofe thefe to have been 

 fhick up at leaft fome weeks ago, and before the hard 

 frofls fet in. The very birds (as we fuppofe) that fluck 

 them up are now on the fame ground, watching the 

 fmaller birds that come out to feed, and have been feen 

 catching the latter but a few days ago. If it were true, 

 that this little hawk had fluck them up for himfelf, hov/ 



* I do not find that Mr. B.irtram has mpnnoned, in any part of his 

 Travel, a L inius Cinadenfis. Since the date nt" this letter, Mr. Hecke- 

 welder has favoured me with a well-preferved pecimen ci he bird-hawk. 

 It proves to be the Lanius Excubitor of Linnaeus, the great-fhrike of Mr. 

 Pennant. B. S. B. 



long 



