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some tendency to come into cities and villages in pursuit of the House or 

 English Sparrow, in which work it is to be encouraged in every way. Dry, 

 mummied mice and birds occasionally found pinned to thorns and 

 barbs of wire fences or hanging from the close forks of twigs are usually 

 the work of this species. 



Economic Status. Though thoroughly raptorial in habit the Northern 

 Shrike cannot be said to do a great amount of damage. It is not common 

 enough within settlement to be a serious factor in the small bird life of the 

 fields. It catches numbers of mice and probably its attacks on them and 

 on the House or English Sparrow compensate for the seed-eating birds it 

 takes. 



622. Loggerhead Shrike, miqbant shrike, butcher-bird. pb. — Lanius ludo- 

 vicianus. L, 9. Plate XXXVIII A. 



Distinctions. This speoiea can hardly be mistaken for any thing but the Northern 

 and it is considerably smaller than that species. The adult is without the fine vermi- 

 culations of the breast and in the juvenile they are only faintly suggested. A summer and 

 not a winter bird in Canada. 



Field Marks. The clear white and light grey of the body plumage, black wings, and tail 

 strongly accentuated with white , and the black band through the face are distinctive of the 

 Shrikes. Any summer Shrike within the cultivated sections will be of this species. 



Nesting. Nest of strips of bark, small twigs, and vegetable fibres lined with fitted 

 wool and feathers. 



Distribution. As a species, North America north to the limit of cultivation. The 

 migrant Shrike occupies eastern North America north of the gulf states and west to the 

 prairie provinces. 



SUBSPECIES. The Loggerhead Shrike, like many other wide ranging species, 

 develops various local characteristics in different parts of its diversified range, each forming 

 a recognized subspecies. The form occupying eastern Canada is the Migrant Shrike, L.l. 

 migrans separable from the tjrpe subspecies in the southern states or the White-rumped of 

 the west by only slight differences of colour and proportions. 



The Loggerhead is a bird of open, brushy pastures and hillsides. 

 Thorn-apple trees, cropped and trimmed by cattle until dense and repellent 

 are its favourite nesting sites and in such neighbourhoods it can usually 

 be seen on some commanding perch, such as the tip of a dead sapling or 

 a telegraph wire, keenly regarding the surrounding country. The impaling 

 of prey is not quite as strongly developed a habit in this species as in the 

 previous one, probably because it is more insectivorous and can handle 

 much of its smaller prey without so doing. At any rate evidence in the 

 shape of remains stuck on thorns is decidedly rare in haunts where the 

 species is common and where it would be expected to be numerous. 

 The song of the Loggerhead Shrike is quite musical and pleasing, but the 

 call notes are harsh and discordant. 



Economic Status. The food habits of the Loggerhead are similar 

 to those of the Northern Shrike, differing only as would be expected in a 

 smaller and weaker bird and a summer rather than a winter resident. 

 Thus we find fewer birds and mammals and more insects are taken, indeed 

 during the height of the insect season the latter seem to constitute the 

 greater part of its food. Early in the season great numbers of beetles are 

 eaten, useful and harmful forms being about equally divided in numbers. 

 Later, grasshoppers and crickets form a large proportion of the food, but 

 numbers of caterpillars, many of them hairy, cutworms, some wasps, 



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