BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 209 



few years ago two farmers, residing near West Chester, killed one 

 day in this manner over one hundred and fifty Cherrybirds, shooting 

 from seven to twenty at each discharge. These birds, as their com- 

 mon names would signify, subsist chiefly on a fruit and berry diet ; 

 the many varieties of cultivated cherries, mulberries, whortleberries, 

 wild grapes, berries of tne gum, cedar and mountain ash, also the fruit 

 of the poke plant, are its favorite food.. In the spring they often visit 

 orchards and gardens to feed on insects or devour portions of the 

 apple blossoms. Cherrybirds are very expert flyatchers and they 

 also destroy great numbers of caterpillars. Nuttall writing of this 

 species says although a small portion of the gardener's cherry crop is 

 destroyed u they fail not to assist in ridding his trees of more deadly 

 enemies which infect them, and the small caterpillars, beetles and 

 various insects now constitute their only food ; and for hours at a 

 time they may be seen feeding on the all-despoiling canker-worms, 

 which infest our apple trees and elms. On these occasions, silent and 

 sedate, after plentifully feeding, they sit dressing their feathers, in 

 near contact on the same branch, to the number of five or six ; and, as 

 the season of selective attachment approaches, they may be observed 

 pluming each other, and caressing with the most gentle fondness. 

 This friendly trait is carried so far that an eye-witness assures me he 

 has seen one among a row of these birds seated upon a branch dart 

 after an insect and offer it to his associate when caught, who very 

 disinterestedly passed it to the next ; and, each delicately declining 

 the offer, the morsel has proceeded backwards and forwards before it 

 was appropriated." 



FAMILY LANIID-ffi. SHRIKES. 

 GENUS LANIUS. LINNAEUS. 

 621 Lanius borealis YIEILL. 



Northern Shrike. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Above light bluish-ash, obscurely soiled with reddish-brown ; forehead, sides of 

 the crown, scapulars, and upper tail coverts hoary-white ; beneath white, the breast 

 and upper portions of the sides with fine tranverse very blackish or grayish lines . 

 wings and tail black, the former with a white patch at base of primaries and tips o 

 srnaM quills, the latter with the lateral feathers tipped with white ; bill blackish^ 

 brown considerably lighter at the base ; eyes dark brown ; black stripe from the bill 

 through and behind the eye, but beneath the latter interrupted by a whitish crescent. 

 Young more or less soiled with brownish. Length about 10 ; extent about 14 inches- 



Hab. Northern Xorth America, south in the winter to the middle portion of the 

 United States (Washington, D. C., Kentucky, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, etc.). 



Although this species is said to breed in some portions of the mount- 

 ainous regions of Pennsylvania, I have observed it only as an irreg- 

 11 BIRDS. 



