GREAT AMERICAN SHRIKE, OR BUTCHER BIRD. 
75 
in his stomach. In the month of December, and while the 
country was deeply covered with snow, I shot one of these 
birds near the head waters of the Mohawk River, in the State 
of New York, the stomach of which was entirely filled with 
large black spiders. He was of a much purer white above, 
than any I have since met with ; though evidently of the same 
species with the present; and I think it probable that the 
males become lighter coloured as they advance in age, till the 
minute transverse lines of brown on the lower parts almost 
disappear. 
In his manners he has more resemblance to the Pies than 
to birds of prey, particularly in the habit of carrying off his 
surplus food, as if to hoard it for future exigencies ; with this 
difference, that Crows, Jays, Magpies, &c. conceal theirs at 
random, in holes and crevices, where, perhaps, it is forgotten, 
or never again found; while the Butcher Bird sticks his on 
thorns 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 presented to them. 
This habit of the Shrike, of seizing and impaling grass- 
hoppers 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 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 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 , 
