HOW THE SHRIKE HUNTS. 245 



At nightfall of a very cold day, as I went out for a walk, I 

 noticed that the sparrows had gone to bed. It was not dark, 

 for a mellow golden light filled the west ; but, on account of 

 the cold,the birds had gone to roost early and sat quietly muffled 

 in their feathers. Half a mile farther on, as I paused on the top 

 of a hill to look at the after-glow in the west, I saw a bird 

 flying directly toward me with the greatest speed and a per- 

 fectly true course. He must have come from the city across 

 the river, a half mile away, and the manner of his flight 

 showed that he knew whither he was bound. 



As he whizzed past, I saw his black, gray, and white 

 livery, and marked his peculiar wing-beat, like the stroke of a 

 strong rower, who rests on his oars a moment between each 

 pull. It was a great northern shrike. He was heading 

 straight for a clump of thick cedars a hundred feet beyond. 

 As he approached he scaled downward, and, when near the 

 ground, gave the peculiar upward bound that marks the 

 shrike's manner" of alighting. For a moment all was still. 

 Perhaps ten < seconds or more passed without a stir in the 

 cedars. Then there rose a clamor of sparrows and out buzzed 

 a flock of them while the shrike in pursuit singled out one 

 of them, and the chase began. 



The sparrow did his best, but he made a mistake, heading 

 for the open and flying a straight course. The shrike was 

 far the better bird on the wing, and it was only a ques- 

 tion of time what the end would be. A house prevented 

 my witnessing the actual capture, and I was rather glad 

 that I did not see it, even if it was one sparrow less. But 

 I had learned something new to me about the shrike: that 

 he has hunting-grounds at some distance from his head- 

 quarters; that he visits them probably with some regularity; 

 that he knew there would be sparrows in this place at 



