604 
A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS 
a thick, warm superstructure of bark-strip, grass, and soft vege- 
table substance. (Coues.) 
Eggs: 4-6; marblings of reddish brown and purple covering the gray- 
green ground. 
Range: Northern North America, south in winter to the middle por- 
tions of the United States (Washington, D. C. ; Kentucky, Kan- 
sas, Colorado, Arizona, northern California). 
The Northern Shrike, though somewhat irregular in its 
comings and goings, is always present in varying numbers 
as a winter resident. In common with all winter birds, its 
movements are guided by the food supply, and if severe cold 
and heavy snows drive away the small birds and bury the mice 
upon which it feeds, the Shrike must necessarily rove. 
Grasshoppers, beetles, other large insects, and field mice 
are staple articles of its food in seasons when they are ob- 
tainable ; in fact, next to insects, mice constitute the staple 
article of its diet, and protection should be accorded it on this 
account, even though we know the Shrike chiefly as the killer 
of small birds. The victims are caught by two methods : 
sneaking, — after the fashion of Crows, — and dropping upon 
them suddenly from a height like the small Hawks. In the 
former case the Shrikes frequent clumps of bushes, either in 
open meadows or gardens, lure the little birds by imitating their 
call notes, and then seize them as soon as they come within 
range. They often kill many more birds than they can possibly 
eat at a meal, and hang them on the spikes of a thorn or on the 
hooks of a cat-briar in some convenient spot, until they are 
needed, in the same manner as a butcher hangs his meat, and 
from this trait the name Butcher-bird was given them. 
Family Ampelidae: Waxwings 
Cedar Waxwing: Ampelis cedrorum. R. 
Cedar-bird 
Plate V Fig. 1 
Length: 6.50-7.25 inches. 
Male and Female: Above grayish cinnamon. Crest, breast, throat, 
wings, and tail purplish cinnamon. Black line from back of 
crest, extending through eye, and forming black frontlets. Sec- 
ondary -wing quills tipped with waxy points. Tail feathers 
banded with yellow, and sometimes red tips. Bill and feet black. 
Song: A buzzing call — “Twee, twee, zee.” “A dreary whisper,” 
Minot calls it. 
