GREA T AMERICAN SHRIKE, OR BUTCHER BIRD. 75 



particularly grasshoppers, which I believe to be his principal 

 food ; having at almost all times, even in winter, found them 

 in his stomach. In the month of December, and while the 

 country was deeply covered with snow, I shot one of these 

 birds near the head waters of the Mohawk River, in the State 

 of New York, the stomach of which was entirely filled with 

 large black spiders. He was of a much purer white above 

 than any I have since met with, though evidently of the same 

 species with the present ; and I think it probable that the males 

 become lighter coloured as they advance in age, till the minute 

 transverse lines of brown on the lower parts almost disappear. 



In his manners he has more resemblance to the pies than 

 to birds of prey, particularly in the habit of carrying off his 

 surplus food, as if to hoard it for future exigencies ; with this 

 difference, that crows, jays, magpies, &c, conceal theirs at 

 random, in holes and crevices, where, perhaps, it is forgotten, 

 or never again found ; while the butcher bird sticks his on 

 thorns and bushes, where it shrivels in the sun, and soon 

 becomes equally useless to the hoarder. Both retain the same 

 habits in a state of confinement, whatever the food may be 

 that is presented to them. 



This habit of the shrike, of seizing and impaling grass- 

 hoppers and other insects on thorns, has given rise to an 

 opinion that he places their carcases there by way of baits, 

 to allure small birds to them, while he himself lies in ambush 

 to surprise and destroy them. In this, however, they appear 

 to allow him a greater portion of reason and contrivance than 

 he seems entitled to, or than other circumstances will altogether- 

 warrant ; for we find that he not only serves grasshoppers in 

 this manner, but even small birds themselves, as those have 

 assured me who have kept them in cages in this country, and 

 amused themselves with their manoeuvres. If so, we might 

 as well suppose the farmer to be inviting crows to his corn 

 when he hangs up their carcases around it, as the butcher 

 bird to be decoying small birds by a display of the dead bodies 

 of their comrades ! 



