148 GREAT AMERICAN SHRIKE. 



serving the grasshoppers on the trees all fixed in natural posi- 

 tions, as if alive, he began to conjecture that this was done to 

 decoy such small birds as feed on these insects to the spot, that 

 he might have an opportunity of devouring them. " If it were 

 true," says he, " that this little hawk had stuck them up for 

 himself, how long would he be in feeding on one or two hun- 

 dred grasshoppers? But if it be intended to seduce the smaller 

 birds to feed on these insects, in order to have an opportunity 

 of catching them, that number, or even one half, or less, may 

 be a good bait all winter," &c. &c. 



This is indeed a very pretty fanciful theory, and would enti- 

 tle our bird to the epithet Fowler ', perhaps with more proprie- 

 ty than Lanius, or Butcher; but, notwithstanding the attention 

 which Mr. Heckewelder professes to have paid to this bird, he 

 appears not only to have been unacquainted that grasshoppers 

 were in fact the favourite food of this Ninekiller, but never once 

 to have considered, that grasshoppers would be but a very in- 

 significant and tasteless bait for our winter birds, which are 

 chiefly those of the Finch kind, that feed almost exclusively on 

 hard seeds and gravel; and among whom five hundred grass- 

 hoppers might be stuck up on trees and bushes, and remain 

 there untouched by any of them forever. Besides, where is his 

 necessity of having recourse to such refined stratagems, when 

 he can at any time seize upon small birds by mere force of flight ! 

 I have seen him, in an open field, dart after one of our small 

 sparrows, with the rapidity of an arrow, and kill it almost in- 

 stantly. Mr. William Bartram long ago informed me, that one 

 of these Shrikes had the temerity to pursue a Snow-bird (F. 

 Hudsonia,) into an open cage, which stood in the garden ; and 

 before they could arrive to its assistance, had already strangled 

 and scalped it, though he lost his liberty by the exploit. In short 

 I am of opinion, that his resolution and activity are amply suf- 

 ficient to enable him to procure these small birds whenever he 

 wants them, which I believe is never but when hard pressed 

 by necessity, and a deficiency of his favourite insects; and that 

 the Crow or the Blue Jay may, with the same probability, be 



