IOWA ORNITHOLOGIST. 



winter it selects for a home a 

 patch of brush, hedge row, or 

 some waste corner where there 

 is a few trees or bushes, where 

 it will frequently spend the most 

 of the winter, and from where its 

 song' can occasionally be heard, 

 especially toward spring. The 

 food of this species consists prin- 

 cipally of insects, mice and small 

 birds. Of the birds I find the 

 Tree Sparrow to suffer most, in 

 this section, but near towns they 

 destroy quite a number of that 

 pest the English Sparrow, which 

 certainly is to their credit. In 

 my opinion they do not destroy 

 nearly so many birds as is gen- 

 erally supposed. I am led to 

 this belief by having at a great 

 many different times seen them 

 try to catch birds but with a sin- 

 gle exception they always failed, 

 and also by the few birds found 

 hung on thorns compared with 

 the number of mice found in the 

 same situation. That they feed 

 quite largely on insects I believe 

 by having seen Shrikes fre- 

 quently on the ground evidently 

 picking up insects, and once dur- 

 ing an unusual warm spell of 

 weather in February I saw one 

 catching some large insects on 

 the wing of which it took twenty- 

 five in the short time that I 

 watched it. These insects ap- 

 peared to me to be the images of 

 large borers that are found in 

 oak timber, this being in a patch 



that had been grubbed down and 

 the trees left and not worked up. 

 This species arrives here in the 

 last week of October or first week 

 of November and remains until 

 about the middle of March. I 

 find by a comparison of my notes 

 for the past seven years that the 

 earliest it was seen was Oct. 23, 

 1890, and the latest was noted 

 Nov. 9, 1895. The latest seen in 

 spring for the seven years was 

 April 3, 1891, which is about the 

 time that the White-rumped 

 Shrike arrives from the south. 

 The two species are often con- 

 founded as one and go by the 

 name of Butcher bird, both hav- 

 ing the habit of hanging their 

 prey on thorns. 



I will give two extracts from 

 my note book as follows: 



December 11, 1892. — This morn- 

 ing I surprised two Northern 

 Shrikes fighting over the body of 

 a Tree Sparrow which one of 

 them had killed and hung on a 

 thorn at the bottom of a hedge, 

 six inches from the ground. 

 They were making quite a row 

 and seemed in dead earnest. The 

 sparrow had its brains, and part 

 of the entrails eaten. Having a 

 gun I stopped the fight by killing 

 one of the combatants. 



November 26, 1895. — Was driv- 

 ing through a small piece of 

 woods when my attention was at- 

 tracted by a Tree Sparrow flying 

 close to my face followed by a 



