NORTHERN SHRIKE. 
i6i 
The propensity for thus singularly securing its prey is also 
practised on birds, which it impales in the same manner, and 
afterwards tears them to pieces at leisure. 
From his attempts to imitate the notes of other small birds, 
in Canada and some parts of New England he is sometimes 
called a Mocking Bird. His usual note, like that of the follow- 
ing species, resembles the discordant creaking of a sign-board 
hinge ; and my friend Mr. Brown has heard one mimicking the 
quacking of his Ducks, so that they answered to him as to a 
decoy fowl. They also imitate other birds, and I have been 
informed that they sing pretty well themselves at times, or 
rather chatter, and mimic the songs of other birds, as if with a 
view to entice them into sight, for the purpose of making them 
their prey. This fondness for imitation, as in the Pies, may 
however be merely the result of caprice. 
So complete at times is the resemblance between the 
Mocking Bird {JMimus pollygloitus) and this species of Lanius, 
that it is difficult to distinguish them apart. I have lately 
heard one (November loth, 1833), employed in a low and soft 
warble resembling tliat of the Song Sparrow at the present 
season, and immediately after his note changed to that of the 
Catbird. Like that pre-eminent minstrel, the Orpheus, he 
also mounts to the topmost spray of some lofty tree to display 
his deceptive talent and mislead the small birds so as to bring 
them within his reach. His attitudes are also light and airy, 
and his graceful, flowing tail is kept in fantastic motion. 
The parents and their brood move in company in quest of 
their subsistence, and remain together the whole season. The 
male boldly attacks even the Hawk or the Eagle in their de- 
fence, and with such fury that they generally decline the onset. 
The Butcher Bird breeds from about latitude 50° northward, mi- 
grating in winter south to the Potomac and Ohio valleys. 
Dr. Arthur Chadbourne, of Cambridge, reports that he has heard 
a female sing, and describes her as “ an unusually fine singer and 
quite a mimic.” 
VOL. I. — II 
