94 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



Wilson and Audubon both give some curious stories in 

 regard to the habits of this bird. 



Wilson says in reference to the great American Shrike 



" 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, in- 

 deed, 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 hardly possible to determine where one 

 tribe ends, or the succeeding one 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 at 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 Mohawk river, in 

 the State of New York, the stomach of which was entirely 

 filled with large black spiders. He was of 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 colored as they advance in 

 age, till the minute tranverse 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 

 surplus food, as if to hoard it for future exigencies ; with this 

 difference, that crows, jays, magpies, &c., conceal theirs at 

 random, in holes and crevices, where, perhaps, it is forgotten, 

 or never again found, while the butcher bird sticks his on 

 thorns and bushes, where it shrivels in the sun, and soon be- 

 comes equally useless to the hoarder. Both retain the same 



