GREAT AMERICAN SHRIKE. 
147 
and bushes, where it shrivels in the sun, and soon becomes 
equally useless to the hoarder. Both retain the same habits in 
a state of confinement, whatever the food may be that is present- 
ed to them. 
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, hy 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 contrivance 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 them- 
selves 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 decoy- 
ing small birds by a display of the dead bodies of their comrades! 
In the ‘‘ Transactions of the American Philosophical Socie- 
ty,” 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 inquiring 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 Neuntoedter (Ninekiller,)- 
which caught and stuck nine grasshoppers a day; and he sup- 
posed 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 favourite 
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, ob- 
