148 
GREAT AMERICAN SHRIKE. 
serving the grasshoppers on the trees all fixed in natural posi- 
tions, 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 hun- 
dred 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 enti- 
tle our bird to the epithet Fowler, perhaps with more proprie- 
ty 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 favourite food of this Ninekiller, but never once 
to have considered, that grasshoppers would be but a very in- 
significant and tasteless bait for our winter birds, which are 
chiefly those of the Finch kind, that feed almost exclusively on 
hard seeds and gravel; and among whom five hundred grass- 
hoppers might be stuck up on trees and bushes, and remain 
there untouched by any of them forever. Besides, where is his 
necessity of having recourse to such refined stratagems, when 
he can at any time seize upon small birds by mere force of flight ! 
I have seen him, in an open field, dart after one of our small 
sparrows, with the rapidity of an arrow, and kill it almost in- 
stantly. Mr. William Bartram long ago informed me, that one 
of these Shrikes had the temerity to pursue a Snow-bird {F. 
Hudsonia,) into an open cage, which stood in the garden; and 
before they could arrive to its assistance, had already strangled 
and scalped it, though he lost his liberty by the exploit. In short 
I am of opinion, that his resolution and activity are amply suf- 
ficient to enable him to procure these small birds whenever he 
wants them, which I believe is never but when hard pressed 
by necessity, and a deficiency of his favourite insects; and that 
the Crow or the Blue Jay may, with the same probability, be 
