Bethel, Maine.
1903.
June 8
(No 3)
had gone a few rods became slower and slowly until
he seemed to move no faster than a lift of thistle down
drifting before a light wind & with equal lightness and
grace. I can think of no other bird which can flies in
just this way. After the first few wing beats he held
his wings wide-spread & quite motionless, his bill pointing
downwards, his tail closed. He rarely approached his
mate nearer then 50 yards but once he went directly
towards her and alighted within ten feet of her when
she greeted him with a low, harsh, vibrating cry & a
long-continued fluttering of her wings like that of a young
bird. On another occasion I saw him fly directly off
from a telegraph pole for a distance of about 100 yards
and then mount straight upwards to a height of forty
or fifty feet apparently in pursuit of some flying insect
which I thought he caught & instantly swallowed. During
the upward flight he beat his wings vigorously but they
were held nearly or quite immovable during the long, smooth
glide by means of which he reached a fence post well 
out in the field. Soon after this he flew down to the
ground & picked up what looked like a large beetle.
Holding this in the tip of his bill he came nearly
straight towards me and, to my great surprise,
alighted by the side of a young Shrike which all the
while must have been sitting within ten yards of me
on a fence rail by the roadside. The young bird
received the insect in its wide opened bill & instantly
swallowed it at the same time quivering its wings.
The place where it sat was not over twenty yards
from the elm which I had previously seen the frog
impaled. Why had not the frog been given directly
Migrant Shrike