of warning or excitement is that in the latter case the less tender passions have^ 

 weighted the clanging anvil with scrap iron and destroyed its resonance. 



The Shrike is a bird of prey, but he is no restless prowler wearing out his 

 wings by incessant flight, — not he. Choosing rather a commanding position on a 

 telegraph wire or exposed tree-top he searches the ground with his eye until he 

 detects some suspicious movement of insect, mouse, or bird. Then he dives down 

 into the grass, and returns to his post to devour at leisure. I once saw a Shrike 

 rise perpendicularly some fifty feet from a telegraph wire by a labored but rapid 

 flight to seize an insect to me invisible, and repair with it to a stone wall. Here 

 he dealt his catch a severe blow, and when satisfied that it was dead, ate it con- 

 tentedly. 



Like most guilty birds, and some innocent ones, the Shrike usually selects 

 a thorn tree for a home. Honey-locusts and the various species of Crataegi are 

 favorite places, but osage-orange hedges also present irresistible attractions, it 

 is safe to say that there is not a mature ten-rod stretch of these delectable thorns 

 in open country which has not harbored one or more nests of this bird. Not 

 only do thorns protect the Shrikes from their enemies, but they afford them 

 convenient hooks for the preservation of game. Mice, grass-hoppers, sparrows, 

 garter-snakes, — anything which the over-fed butcher does not care for at the 

 time of capture, is impaled on a thorn for future reference, or as a ghastly warn- 

 ing to the unwary. Besides that which is laid up, the bird, in the case of larger 

 game, invariably seeks the assistance of a thorn or splinter to enable it to rend 

 its catch for immediate consumption. 



The nest — admirably shown in our illustration — is usually a bulky affair 

 outside, but exceedingly tight and warm within. Since the bird nests early, it 

 counts nothing on the protection of foliage, but cunningly screens its eggs by over- 

 arching chicken feathers worked into the rim of the nest. First sets are com- 

 monly found by the middle of April, but the birds usually nest again in June. 

 They are singularly indifferent, as a rule, to the welfare of the nest, but when 

 it is disturbed sit clinking in the distance, or absent themselves entirely. Occa- 

 sionally, however, especially if the young are well grown, they make a spirited 

 and deafening defense. Eggs are deposited on successive or alternate days, 

 and incubation is accomplished in about two weeks. 



611 



