AMERICAN BUTCHER BIRD. 83 
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 , vol. iv , p. 124, the reader may find a long 
letter on this subject from John Hecke welder, of Beth- 
lehem, 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 , (nine killer,) which caught and stuck 
nine grasshoppers a-day ; and he supposed, that as the 
bird itself never fed on grasshoppers, it must do it for 
pleasure. Mr Heckewelder now recollected, that one 
of those nine killers 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, observing the grass- 
hoppers on the trees all fixed in natural positions, 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 hundred 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. 
This is, indeed, a very pretty fanciful theory, and 
would entitle our bird to the epithet fowler , perhaps 
with more propriety than lanius, or butcher ; but, 
notwithstanding the attention which Mr Heckewelder 
professes to have paid to this bird, he appears not only 
