146 GREAT AMERICAN SHRIKE. 



ers. The female lays six eggs, of a pale cinereous colour, thick- 

 ly marked at the greater end with spots and streaks of rufous. 

 She sits fifteen days. The young are produced early in June, 

 sometimes towards the latter end of May; and during the great- 

 er part of the first season are of a brown ferruginous colour on 

 the back. 



When we compare the beak of this species, with his legs and 

 claws, they appear to belong to two very different orders of 

 birds; the former approaching, in its conformation, to that of 

 the Accipitrine; the latter to those of the Pies; and, indeed, in 

 his food and manners he is assimilated to both. For though man 

 has arranged and subdivided this numerous class of animals into 

 separate tribes and families, yet nature has united these to each 

 other by such nice gradations, and so intimately, that it is hard- 

 ly possible to determine where one tribe ends, or the succeed- 

 ing commences. We therefore find several eminent naturalists 

 classing this genus of birds with the Accipitrine, others with the 

 Pies. Like the former he preys, occasionally, on other birds; 

 and like the latter on insects, particularly grasshoppers, which 

 I believe to be his principal food; having at almost all times, 

 even in winter, found them in his stomach. In the month of 

 December, and while the country was deeply covered with 

 snow, I shot one of these birds, near the head waters of the Mo- 

 hawk river, in the state of New York, the stomach of which 

 was entirely filled with large black spiders. He was of a much 

 purer white, above, than any I have since met with; though 

 evidently of the same species with the present; and I think it 

 probable, that the males become lighter coloured as they ad- 

 vance in age, till the minute transverse lines of brown on the 

 lower parts almost disappear. 



In his manners he has more resemblance to the pies than to 

 birds of prey, particularly in the habit of carrying off his sur- 

 plus food, as if to hoard it for future exigences; with this dif- 

 ference, that Crows, Jays, Magpies, &c. conceal theirs at ran- 

 dom, in holes and crevices, where perhaps it is forgotten or 

 never again found; while the Butcher-bird sticks his on thorns 



