94 
WILD SCEKES AND SONG-BIRDS. 
"Wilson and Audubon both give some curious stories in 
regard to the habits of this bird. 
Wilson s^js in reference to the great American Shrike — 
"When we compare the beak of this species with his legs 
and claws, they appear to belong to two very different orders 
of birds ; the former approaching in its conformation to that 
of the accipitrine ; the latter to those of the pies ; and, in- 
deed, in his food and manners, he is assimilated to both. For 
though man has arranged and subdivided this numerous class 
of animals into separate tribes and families, yet nature has 
united these to each other by such nice gradations, and so 
intimately, that it is hardly possible to determine where one 
tribe ends, or the succeeding one commences. We therefore 
find several eminent naturalists classing this genus of birds 
with the accipitrine, others with the pies. Like the former, 
he preys occasionally on other birds ; and like the latter, on 
insects, particularly grasshoppers, which I believe to be his 
principal food : having at almost at 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 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 colored as they advance in 
age, till the minute tranverse 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, wdiile the butcher bird sticks his on 
thorns and bushes, where it shrivels in the sun, and soon be- 
comes equally useless to the hoarder. Both retain the same 
