104 
GREAT AMERICAN SHRIKE. 
This habit of the Shrike of seizing and impaling grasshoppers, and 
other insects, on thorns, has given rise to an opinion, that he places 
their carcasses 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 con- 
trivance 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 carcasses around 
it, as the Butcher-bird to be decoying small birds by a display of the 
dead bodies of their comrades. 
In the "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society," vol. 
IV., p. 124, the reader may find a long letter on this subject, from Mr. 
John Heckewelder, of Bethlehem, to Dr. Barton ; the substance of 
which is as follows : That on the 17th of December, 1795, he (Mr. 
Heckewelder) went to visit a young orchard, which had been planted a 
few weeks before, and was surprised to observe on every one of the 
trees one, and on some, two and three grasshoppers, stuck down on the 
sharp thorny branches ; that on inf|uiring of his tenant the reason of 
this, he informed him, that they were stuck there by a small bird of 
prey called by the Germans Ncuntoedter (Ninekiller), which caught and 
stuck nine grasshoppers a day ; and he supposed that as the bird itself 
never fed on grasshoppers, it must do it for pleasure. Mr. Heckewelder 
now recollected that one of those Ninekillers had, many years before, 
taken a favorite bird of his out of his cage, at the window ; since which 
he had paid particular attention to it ; and being perfectly satisfied that 
it lived entirely on mice and small birds, and, moreover, observing the 
grasshoppers on the trees all fixed in natural positions, as if alive, he 
began to conjecture that this was done to decoy such small birds as feed 
on these insects to the spot, that he might have an opportunity of 
devouring them. "If it were true," says he, "that this little hawk 
had stuck them up for himself, how long would he be in feeding on one 
or two hundred grasshoppers ? But if it be intended to seduce the 
smaller birds to feed on these insects, in order to have an opportunity 
of catching them, that number, or even one-half, or less, may be a good 
bait all winter," &c., &c. 
This is indeed a very pretty fanciful theory, and would entitle our 
bird to the epithet Fowler, perhaps with more propriety than Lanius, or 
Butcher ; but, notwithstanding the attention which Mr. Heckewelder 
professes to have paid to this bird, he appears not only to have been 
unacquainted that grasshoppers were in fact the favorite food of this 
Ninekiller, but never once to have considered, that grasshoppers would 
