GREAT AMERICAN SHRIKE, OR BUTCHER BIRD. 77 



winter birds, which are chiefly those of the finch kind, that 

 feed almost exclusively on hard seeds and gravel ; and among 

 whom five hundred grasshoppers might be stuck up on trees 

 and bushes, and remain there untouched by any of them for 

 ever. Besides, where is his necessity of having recourse to 

 such refined stratagems, when he can, at any time, seize upon 

 small birds by mere force of flight ? I have seen him, in an 

 open field, dart after one of our small sparrows with the rapi- 

 dity of an arrow, and kill it almost instantly. Mr William 

 Bartram long ago informed me, that one of these shrikes had 

 the temerity to pursue a snow bird (F. Hudsonia) into an 

 open cage, which stood in the garden, and, before they could 

 arrive to its assistance, had already strangled and scalped it, 

 though he lost his liberty by the exploit. In short, I am of 

 opinion, that his resolution and activity are amply sufficient 

 to enable him to procure these small birds whenever he wants 

 them, which, I believe, is never but when hard pressed by 

 necessity, and a deficiency of his favourite insects ; and that 

 the crow or the blue jay may, with the same probability, be 

 supposed to be laying baits for mice and flying squirrels 

 when they are hoarding their Indian-corn, as he for birds 

 while thus disposing of the exuberance of his favourite food. 

 Both the former and the latter retain the same habits in a 

 state of confinement ; the one filling every seam and chink of 

 his cage with grain, crumbs of bread, &c, and the other 

 sticking up, not only insects, but flesh, and the bodies of such 

 birds as are thrown in to him, on nails or sharpened sticks 

 fixed up for the purpose. Nor, say others, is this practice of 

 the shrike difficult to be accounted for. Nature has given to 

 this bird a strong, sharp, and powerful beak, a broad head, 

 and great strength in the muscles of his neck ; but his legs, 

 feet, and claws are by no means proportionabty strong, and 

 are unequal to the task of grasping and tearing his prey, like 

 those of the owl and falcon kind. He, therefore, wisely avails 

 himself of the powers of the former, both in strangling his 

 prey, and in tearing it to pieces while feeding. 



