142 Birds of Lakeside and Prairie 



where it was hidden from sight. The shrike made no attempt 

 to recapture the sparrow. It seemingly was a pure case of 

 "out of sight, out of mind." In a few moments it flew 

 away in search of another victim. The sparrow was picked 

 up from the snow bank and put out of its misery, for it was 

 still living. There was a hole in its skull as round as though 

 it had been punched with a conductor's ticket clip. 



It has been my experience that the great northern shrike 

 hunts most successfully when it, so to speak, flies down its 

 prey. If it gets a small bird well started out into the open, 

 and with cover at a long distance ahead, the shrike generally 

 manages to overtake and overpower its victim. If the quarry, 

 however, is sought in the underbrush or in the close twined 

 branches of the treetop, it generally succeeds in eluding the 

 butcher. One of the most interesting incidents of all my bird 

 observations was that of the attempted capture by a great 

 northern shrike of a small brown creeper. The scene of the 

 action was near the south end of the Lincoln Park lagoon in 

 Chicago. The creeper was nimbly climbing a tree bole, 

 industriously picking out insects, as is its custom, when a 

 shrike dropped down after it from its high perch on a tree 

 which stood close and overshadowed the one from whose bark 

 the creeper was gleaning its breakfast. The shrike was seen 

 coming. The creeper, for the fraction of a second, flattened 

 itself and clung convulsively to the tree trunk. Then recov- 

 ering, it darted to the other side of the bole, while the shrike 

 brought up abruptly and clumsily just at the spot where the 

 creeper had been. The discomfited bird went back to its 

 perch. The creeper rounded the tree once more, and down 

 went the shrike. The tactics of a moment before were 

 repeated, the shrike going back to its perch chagrined and 



