NORTHERN SHRIKE. 315 
‘The Shrikes subsist entirely on animal food. Grain and berries to them are an 
abomination; but flesh, flesh is what they crave for, whether the tender warm-blooded 
flesh of a barely hatched young bird, the brain of larger birds, or the juicy inside of a 
full-sized beetle. In the preparation of their food most of the Shrikes are thoroughly 
cruel; they chase and catch more than they can eat, and force small living animals on 
sharp thorns, where they frequently remain to suffer for days before they die or are 
eaten by their captors. The Shrikes are partly migratory and partly they belong to 
certain latitudes, but they are all rovers. 
Genus Lanius Linnzus. Shrikes. Two species and two varieties. 
NORTAERN SHRIKE. 
Lanius borealis VieILLot. 
Als’ HIS “bold brigand” is very common in winter from the northern to the middle 
¢q a portions of the United States. Its summer home is the northern part of North 
America. It is said to breed also in Maine and in mountainous regions of other New 
England States. In Wisconsin and northern Illinois it arrives usually late in October 
or early in November, leaving again for its northern home early in March. It is usually 
seen in the tops of the osage orange hedges and on telegraph poles, scanning carefully 
the surroundings in every direction, watching for its prey, small birds and mice. It is 
of a cruel, reckless nature, very rapacious, catching almost every bird which it is able 
to overpower, and many more than it is able to eat. When the food supply becomes 
scarce, it frequently visits cities where it kills large numbers of European Sparrows. In 
Milwaukee they are frequently seen in gardens and even in crowded streets. Dr. T. M. 
Brewer gives an excellent description of the habits of this bird: 
“Its bold audacity and perseverance are quite remarkable, and are often displayed, 
in the fall, in the manner in which it will enter an apartment through an open window 
and attack a Canary, even in the presence of members of the family. It rarely fails, if 
it gains access to the cage, to destroy its inmate before the latter can be rescued by 
the intervention of those present, and only by great promptness in sheltering the cage. 
In one instance the writer was sitting at a closed window, reading, with a Canary 
hanging above him. Suddenly there was a severe blow struck at the pane of glass near 
the cage, and the frightened Canary uttered cries of alarm, and fell to the bottom of 
its cage. The cause-was soon explained. A Shrike had dashed upon the bird, unconscious 
of the intervening glass, and was stretched upon the snow under the window, stunned 
by the blow. He revived when taken up, and lived several days, was sullen, but tame, 
and utterly devoid of fear. He refused raw meat, but eagerly tore in pieces and devoured 
small birds when given to him. His tameness and indifference to our presence may have 
been occasioned by stupor arising from h’s injury. In another case, a Shrike made a 
