THE MIGRANT SHRIKE. 



293 



warning or excitement is that in the latter case the less tender passions have 

 weighted the clanging anvil with scrap iron and destroyed its resonance. 



The Shrike is a bird of prey, but he is no restless prowler wearing out 

 his wings by incessant flight, not he. Choosing rather a commanding posi- 

 tion on a telegraph wire or exposed tree-top, he searches the ground with his 

 eye until he detects some suspicious movement of insect, mouse, or bird. Then 

 he dives down into the grass, and returns to his post to devour at leisure. I 

 once saw a Shrike rise perpendicularly some fifty feet from a telegraph wire 

 by a labored but rapid flight to seize an insect to me invisible, and repair with 

 it to a stone wall. Here he dealt his catch a severe blow, and when satisfied 

 that it was dead, ate it contentedly. 



Like most guilty birds, and some innocent ones, the Shrike usually selects 

 a thorn tree for a home. Honey-locusts and the various species of Crataegi 



are favorite places, but osage- 

 irresistible attractions. It is 

 mature ten-rod stretch of these 

 try which has not harbored 

 Not only do thorns 

 enemies, but they afford 

 preservation of game, 

 garter - snakes 

 butcher does not 

 is impaled on a 

 as a ghastly 

 sides that which 



orange hedges also present 

 safe to say that there is not a 

 delectable thorns in open coun- 

 one or more nests of this bird, 

 protect the Shrikes from their 

 them convenient hooks for the 

 Mice, grass-hoppers, sparrows, 

 anything which the over-fed 

 care for at the time of capture, 

 thorn for future reference, or 

 warning to the unwary. Be- 

 is laid up, the bird, in the case of larger 

 game, invariably seeks the assistance of 

 a thorn or splinter to enable it to rend 

 its catch for immediate consumption. 



The nest admirably shown in our 

 illustration is usually a bulky affair out- 

 side, but exceedingly tight and warm 

 within. Since the bird nests early, it 

 counts nothing on the protection of foli- 

 age, but cunningly screens its eggs by 

 overarching chicken feathers worked into 

 the rim of the nest. First sets are com- 

 monly found by the middle of April, but the birds usually nest again in June. 

 They are singularly indifferent, as a rule, to the welfare of the nest, but when 

 it is disturbed sit clinking in the distance, or absent themselves entirely. Occa- 

 sionally, however, especially if the young are well grow^n, they make a spirited 

 and deafening defense. Eggs are deposited on successive or alternate days, 

 and incubation is accomplished in about two weeks. 



Photo by the Author. 

 THE SHRIKE'S PREY. 



