184 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
softiest downiest feathers that can be found. Eggs almost in- 
variably six, grayish white and spotted with various shades of 
brown. 
Later in the season, when the young have left the nest, itis a 
most interesting sight to see the parent birds with the six little 
chuckle-headed young ones lined up on a barbed-wire fence 
teaching them to catch grasshoppers. They are quite fearless 
when nesting, and I have had my hand severly pinched by the 
mother bird for daring to put it in her nest. 
Oue winter time while driving along the road over in the 
Spoon-river country, a young farmer who was getting out his 
shock corn, called to me to “come over and see this mouse-hawk 
catch mice.” I needed no second invitation, and going over 
watched the proceedings. The farmer would tear down a shock 
and a mouse would scamper from it across the snow to take 
refuge in another shock. The shrike that was perched in the 
top of a small tree, a full hundred yards away, would come as 
straight as a bullet, catch the mouse, beat it.on the hard snow, 
toss it up in the air, catch it in a new place and hammer it 
some more, and then fly away with it across the river which 
was near by. 
In a few minutes it would be back again, ready to repeat the 
performance. After seeing it kill two or three mice, I deter- 
mined to take a hand, and when the next mouse raced across 
the snow, I gave chase to it, but the shrike was right on hand 
and not to be daunted by my presence. It was nip and tuck 
between the two of us, which would get the mouse but tuck won, 
flying right between my feet, catching up the rodent and after 
the pounding process, flew with it across the river where it had 
carried the others. 
T now resolved as the stream was well frozen over, to cross 
and see what was being done with all these mice. A little way 
back from the bank, in the thick woods, I found a honey-locust 
tree with more than a dozen mice impaled on its sharp thorns. 
All seemed to be intact and the thorn in nearly all seemed to 
be through the throat. 
It will sometimes make a dash at a caged bird hung in a 
window and lose its life. 
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