262 
INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 
Its habits are shy and retiring, and it renders itself 
useful, and claims protection, by destroying mice around 
the plantation, for which it sits and watches near the 
rice stacks for hours together, seldom failing of its prey 
as soon as it appears. Like most of the genus, he is also 
well satisfied with large insects, crickets, and grasshop- 
pers. He has no song, and Wilson and Audubon com- 
pare his call to the creaking of a sign-board in windy 
weather ; be probably, however, has the usual talent for 
mimicry. The latter informs us, that the species begin 
to pair about March, and show very little affection in 
their mutual deportment. The nest is fixed in a low 
bush, generally a hawthorn, and is but little concealed. 
It is coarsely made of dry crooked twigs, and lined with 
root fibres, and slender grass. The eggs, 3 to 5, are 
greenish white. Incubation is performed by both sexes 
in turn, but each bird procures its own food in the inter- 
vals. They rear only one brood in the season. Its 
manners resemble those of a Hawk ; it sits silent and 
watchful, until it espies its prey on the ground, when 
it pounces upon it, and strikes first with the bill, in 
the manner of small birds, seizing the object immedi- 
ately after in its claws ; but it never attacks birds or 
impales its prey like the preceding species.* 
The Logger-head Shrike is 9 inches long, and 13 in alar expansion. 
Above dark grey ; the scapulars and line over the eye whitish. 
Wings black, with a small spot of white at the base of the primaries, 
and tipt with white. Forehead and sides of the head included in a 
broad black band. Tail cuneiform, the 4 middle feathers wholly 
black (in the adult ?), the rest more or less tipt with white, to the 
outer one, which is nearly all white. Below white, sometimes (ac- 
cording to age) marked with faint, waving, pale, dusky lines; the 
sides tinged with brown. Iris dark hazel. Bill and legs black. — 
The Female is somewhat smaller and darker. 
* Audubon, Orn. Biog-_ i. p. 300, 301. 
