472 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



erally those with a white ground color, are heavily spotted 

 only at the larger end, but this type is rare I have also seen 

 eggs wreathed only about the smaller end, these being of course 

 freaks. 



A pair of birds occupies the same locality year after year, 

 that is to say I have found nests in the same trees or group of 

 trees, and many times on the very same limb from which a 

 nest or nests had been taken in years previously. The eggs 

 also were of the same type so that it was evidently the same 

 birds. For some years I watched several pair of these birds 

 from season to season and could invariably count on their 

 return to the same localities, the type of eggs found in each 

 locality being similar from year to year, and every thing in 

 fact tending to show I was watching the same birds. In one 

 case the male bird was killed and the survivor soon found a 

 mate and had another nest in the same locality within a month. 

 The next season the female was killed, the male shortly found 

 a new mate in the same way and another nest was built, and the 

 eggs laid therein were of a different type. Of late years lack 

 of time has prevented my following up the Shrikes, but I have 

 knowledge of one pair being in the same locality for ten years, 

 and of several other pair for only a year or so less than this. 



The male bird helps in all the home duties. Nest building 

 ordinarily requires a week, sometimes ten days. Four to eight, 

 generally five or six eggs are laid in late April or early May, 

 an egg each day until the clutch is complete. Incubation 

 requires from thirteen to sixteen days according to circum- 

 stances and the eggs are all hatched within three days at the 

 outside from the time when the first one hatches. Incubation 

 generally begins with the first egg laid, sometimes not until 

 the set is half completed. The young are in the nest eighteen 

 to twenty-two days, and on leaving are accompanied by the 

 parents for a season. In late June another brood is usually 

 reared, the male taking charge of the first brood while the 

 female incubates. 



