104 GREAT AMERICAN SHRIKE. 



This habit of the Shrike of seizing and impaling grasshoppers, and 

 other insects, on thorns, has given rise to an opinion, that he places 

 their carcasses there, by way of baits, to allure small birds to them, 

 while he himself lies in ambush to surprise and destroy them. In this, 

 however, they appear to allow him a greater portion of reason and con- 

 trivance than he seems entitled to, or than other circumstances will 

 altogether warrant ; for we find that he not only serves grasshoppers in 

 this manner, but even small birds themselves, as those have assured me 

 who have kept them in cages in this country, and amused themselves 

 with their manoeuvres. If so, we might as well suppose the farmer to 

 be inviting Crows to his corn, when he hangs up their carcasses around 

 it, as the Butcher-bird to be decoying small birds by a display of the 

 dead bodies of their comrades. 



In the "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society," vol. 

 IV., p. 124, the reader may find a long letter on this subject, from Mr. 

 John Heckewelder, of Bethlehem, to Dr. Barton ; the substance of 

 which is as follows : That on the 17th of December, 1795, he (Mr. 

 Heckewelder) went to visit a young orchard, which had been planted a 

 few weeks before, and was surprised to observe on every one of the 

 trees one, and on some, two and three grasshoppers, stuck down on the 

 sharp thorny branches ; that on inquiring of his tenant the reason of 

 this, he informed him, that they were stuck there by a small bird of 

 prey called by the Germans Neuntoedter (Ninekiller), which caught and 

 stuck nine grasshoppers a day ; and he supposed that as the bird itself 

 never fed on grasshoppers, it must do it for pleasure. Mr. Heckewelder 

 now recollected that one of those Ninekillers had, many years before, 

 taken a favorite bird of his out of his cage, at the window ; since which 

 he had paid particular attention to it ; and being perfectly satisfied that 

 it lived entirely on mice and small birds, and, moreover, observing the 

 grasshoppers on the trees all fixed in natural positions, as if alive, he 

 began to conjecture that this was done to decoy such small birds as feed 

 on these insects to the spot, that he might have an opportunity of 

 devouring them. "If it were true," says he, "that this little hawk 

 had stuck them up for himself, how long would he be in feeding on one 

 or two hundred grasshoppers ? But if it be intended to seduce the 

 smaller birds to feed on these insects, in order to have an opportunity 

 of catching them, that number, or even one-half, or less, may be a good 

 bait all winter," &c., &c. 



This is indeed a very pretty fanciful theory, and would entitle our 

 bird to the epithet Fowler, perhaps with more propriety than Lanius, or 

 Butcher; but, notwithstanding the attention which Mr. Heckewelder 

 professes to have paid to this bird, he appears not only to have been 

 unacquainted that grasshoppers were in fact the favorite food of this 

 Ninekiller, but never once to have considered, that grasshoppers would 



