THE LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 



while it was only a short distance to wire fences decorated with 

 wool, and the Stanley chicken yard, which furnished the lining 

 and trimming of the nest. It was a larger structure than a 

 Robin's. 



Mother Shrike laid five grayish eggs, sprinkled with brownish 

 ash. Father Shrike fed her as she brooded. When she went to 

 bathe he stood sentinel so no sneaking Cow-bird imposed on his 

 family, nor did thieving Crow eat his eggs or young. Occa- 

 sionally, to prove that he was more nearl\ r related to the Vireo 

 and the Robin than to the Hawk family, Father Shrike perched 

 on a fence-post repeating a few notes that made the Crow laugh, 

 drove away the Cow-birds and sent the Bobolink dancing down 

 the rod-line chattering with every feather awry. "I have," is 

 my answer to Maurice Thompson's poetical question as to: 

 "Who has ever heard of such a thing as a Loggerhead Shrike 

 that tried to sing?" 



The old Shrikes were very friendly. They soon paid small 

 heed to my work with them. But there is no place for pictures 

 of them unless reproductions of their family run short. The 

 young were marked exactly like their parents, also very similar 

 in colour effect, while they were lovable. The grown birds 

 differed in having the gray parts of the feathering a solid colour, 

 a more prominent hook on the beak, while their length of wing 

 and tail destroyed in them the plump appearance of the babies. 

 At a short distance no difference could be noticed except in shape. 



The youngsters filled their cradle to overflowing. They were 

 impartial, allowing Bob or me to feed them. The parts of their 

 food they could not assimilate they regurgitated in little oblong 

 pellets. There was no such thing as calculating the number of 

 insects consumed in that nest in a day. The old birds kept up a 

 gteady flight while Bob and I wearied ourselves, yet the five 

 squalling beaks were always wide open. If any baby failed to 



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