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GREAT NOKTHEKN SHRIKE. 

 Lanius borealis. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Length about ten and one-half inches; extent about four- 

 teen; tail about four and three-fourths; above pale bluish-gray, 

 whitening on upper tail-coverts and scapulars; and some speci- 

 mens have upper parts faintly tinged with pale rusty; below 

 whitish (sometimes tinged with pale brown), breast and sides 

 "waved" with dusky or grayish lines; lores and a broad streak 

 back of eye black; wings and tail blackish; the primaries (large 

 wing quills) are white from base to about half their length; 

 nearly all tail feathers have white tips and outer webs of lat- 

 eral ones are w'hite. 



Habitat. — Northern North America, south in the winter to the 

 middle portions of United States (Washington, D. C, Kentucky, 

 Kansas, Colorado. .Arizona, etc.). 



This specios althoiigh recorded bv Dr. ^^^ P. Turn- 

 bull, as a summer resident "ou the inountaiu ridges of 

 the .VUeghenies," do<'S not, I ain (juite positive, ever 

 breed within our limits. The Slirike or r5ntcher-biid 

 whioli rears its family in F'ennsylvania, and is common, 

 particularly in the northwestern section of the Com- 

 monwealth, is the Loggerhead wliich in immy instances 

 is misiaken for its lai'^ier and more powerful I'elative, 

 which in the summer season retires usually beyond the 

 northern United States to rear its young. 



The Northein Shrike is more frequently met with in 

 the upper than the lower half of Pennsylvania where 

 i( is found as a winter sojourner from Xovember to 

 April. It frequents briery thickets, thorn hedj^es. and 

 gra.ssy fields near trees and bushes. P.irds of this 

 species sometimes visit towns and ]>rey on English 

 Sparrows. Shrikes feed chiefly O'U grasshoppers and 

 beetles, and when these are not easily obt;iin(Ml they 



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