The Loggerhead Shrike 59 



and is lined with grass and feathers. The eggs, three to six in 

 number, are a dull white, thickly spotted, chiefly at the large 

 end, with brown and lilac. The male takes no part in incuba- 

 tion, but during the time is very attentive to the female and 

 carries much food to her. Incubation lasts about twenty days. 

 Both the male and female are much devoted to their young and 

 are active in feeding them. The young leave the nest in 

 twelve to fifteen days. Then the entire family may be seen 

 having a good time feeding together a pretty sight to wit- 

 ness. 



In its habits of life the loggerhead shrike is a solitary 

 bird. Year after year a pair of them may be found in the same 

 locality. In my tramps I always know where to find a pair 

 of them, and except two times I have never seen more than 

 a pair of them at the same time. So far as I have observed, 

 they are most frequently found along fence rows and not in- 

 frequently by the roadside, especially if the fence be an old rail 

 one with its corners grown up in bushes and briars. There 

 they will fly ahead of the traveler from panel to panel for 

 some distance, and then, like the mourning dove, make a cir- 

 cuit and fly back to the starting point. For several years I 

 have observed a pair of them doing this along the highway 

 leading from the interurban station to Buzzard's Roost, and 

 the highway leading from the railway station to Somerleaze. 

 In flight they move along evenly, close to the ground, with 

 heads up and with a very quick flapping of the wings. 



I find that bird writers, as a rule, say that this shrike has 

 not the gift of song, and this accords with my observations, 

 and I have watched them carefully. But Mrs. Olive Thorne 

 Miller, one of our most careful investigators of bird life, in 

 giving an account of one that she had watched and was study- 

 ing, says : "In a few moments, when I had become quiet, he 

 went to the nest, and sitting there on the edge, hidden from 

 my view, he condescended to sing, a low, sweet song, truly 

 musical, though simple in construction, being merely a single 

 clear note followed by a trill several tones higher. After de- 

 livering this attractive little aria a dozen or more times, he 

 flew out of the tree and over my head, and sang no more." It 

 is conceded, however, that the northern shrike does sing, and 



