360 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the swampy districts, I am usually sure to see one or more of these 

 birds. 



Haunts and habits. In habits this shrike is more daring and blood- 

 thirsty than its southern cousin. I have frequently stood in the edge 

 of a thicket and watched the Northern shrike pursue Tree sparrows and 

 juncos relentlessly for half an hour at a time, through the densest portion 

 of the tangle and among the trees, until the little birds were apparently 

 stupefied or nearly paralyzed with fright, when he struck them down with 

 a sudden blow on the back of the head, fell with them to the ground 

 and then carried them away to impale on some thorn or barbed wire 

 fence, where he devoured, perhaps, a small portion of his victim and flew 

 away to seek some other encounter. I have often found whole chick- 

 adees, Tree sparrows and j uncos impaled upon thorns without being 

 touched by this bloodthirsty assassin. However, he kills an equal or even 

 greater number of meadow mice, and in the fall and spring large numbers 

 of grasshoppers, crickets and other injurious insects. Considering the 

 fact that he so often feeds upon English sparrows and meadow mice, I 

 have no doubt he might be considered among our beneficial species in 

 spite of the few song birds which he destroys. 



The notes of the shrike are loud and harsh, rather varied but dis- 

 connected, a series of squeaks and whistlings; but late in the spring he 

 occasionally bursts forth into an unexpected song which has been compared 

 to that of the Catbird and which I myself on one occasion took for the song 

 of a Mockingbird, having seen the performer in the distance flying from 

 tree to tree, his gray, black and white varied colors, together with his song, 

 having suggested the famous southern songster to m}'- mind. I have since 

 heard that some have gone so far as to suggest that both the colors and the 

 notes of the shrike are a mimicry of the Mockingbird, but considering the 

 difference in distribution of the two species, it seems to my mind a purely 

 fanciful suggestion. 



The late Austin F. Park thus describes the hunting of the shrike: 

 "March 2, 1879, near the Delaware and Hudson Railroad shops, on Green 



