TO 
THE CONDOR 
I Vol. HI 
in a small C5^press tree at the roadside. 
Driving up to the fence I stood up in 
ni}’ buggy in time to see a shrike flit off 
her nest which contained five fresh 
eggs. As my destination was a small 
stream about a mile and a half farther 
down the road I left the nest until I 
should return. Imagine my surprise 
when I went to collect the set to find 
six eggs instead of five! The female 
had deposited an egg while I was gone. 
Desiring .some specimens of the 
shrike for skins, I shot the female as 
she flew from the nest. On the 22nd of 
March I again drove out to the stream 
mentioned above and as I passed the 
cypress tree I saw another nest upon 
the same spot. Climbing up to it I was 
rewarded with a nice set of six eggs. 
The male bird had secured another 
mate, the)" had built a nest and the 
female laid a set of six eggs in the 
the .short space of seventeen days! The 
female is a very close sitter, especially 
if the eggs are incubated, in some cases 
allowing herself to be touched before 
leaving the nest. 
The nest is a bulky structure placed 
in some convenient fork of a cypre.s.s or 
willow or in a thick bunch of twigs 
near the end of a drooping oak limb, at 
heights var3"ing from five to thirty feet 
from the ground. It is composed of an 
outer laj-er of coarse twigs, with a fill- 
ing of rope, straw, string, grasses or al- 
most any soft sub.stance available and 
lined with feathers, cotton or wool, 
usually feathers. 
The eggs range from five to seven in 
number, although I have taken one set 
of eight, and they are usuall}" of a dull 
grayish ground color, although I have 
found some specimens showing a de- 
cidedly greenish cast. The)" are spot- 
ted with light brown, olive and some- 
times purple, which is in most speci- 
mens heaviest at the larger end. 
Sixteen specimens from five different 
sets in the writer’s collection average 
.pdx.yi. The extremes are 1.06X.71, 
.86X.69 and .ggx.ys. 
1 might here record a set of albino 
shrike’s eggs which were taken by a 
“small boy’’ near my home in 1894. 
Four of the seven eggs in the set were 
pure white, the other three being 
white, very spar.sely spotted with a 
light shade of brown. I used every in- 
ducement to secure the set for my col- 
lection but they could be obtained for 
neither love nor money. This is the 
only case of albini.sm I have ever seen 
in a great many sets of shrikes’ eggs ex- 
amined, so I am led to believe it is quite 
a rare occurrence. I believe the period 
of incubation is fourteen days. The 
young are very interesting little 
creatures when they are ju.st leaving 
the ne.st and it is said they make inter- 
esting pets if taken at this time and 
raised. Perhaps it would be well to re- 
late an experiment along this line 
which I once witnessed, and which was 
a decided failure. 
March i6th, 1900, while at work in 
an orchard I found two young birds 
just learning to fly, in a live oak tree 
and after an exciting chase, I succeed- 
ed in capturing them. Placing them in 
my lunch basket I started for home, the 
old birds meanwhile following me close- 
ly. Finally, the young birds became 
quiet in the basket and the old birds 
took their departure, after following me 
almost a mile. The same evening I 
took the youg birds to the residence of 
Mr. Barlow, thinking perhaps he would 
like to see them alive before I skinned 
them. Imagine my surprise to hear 
him say he thought he would raise 
them! As they were evidently hungry 
he brought out some oysters and pro- 
ceeded to fill them up, whereupon they 
immediately turned up their toes and 
were in due time added to our collec- 
tion. 
The California Shrike is a bird of 
very unsavory reputation, and I think 
from all my observations that he no 
doubt deserves it. His favorite past- 
time seems to be in catching crickets, 
grasshoppers, lizards, small snakes and 
even small birds and impaling them up- 
on a barlted wire fence or .some sharp 
