84 
LANIUS EXCUBITOR. 
to have been unacquainted that grasshoppers were, in 
fact, the favourite food of this nine killer, but never 
once to have considered, that grasshoppers would be 
but a very insignificant 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 grasshoppers might be stuck 
up on trees and bushes, and remain there untouched by 
any of them for ever. 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 instantly. Mr William Bar tram 
long ago informed me, that one of these shrikes had 
the temerity to pursue a snow bird (i 7 . Hudsonica) 
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 resolu- 
tion and activity are amply sufficient 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 supposed to be laying baits for mice and 
flying squirrels, when they are hoarding their Indian 
corn, as he for birds, while thus disposing of the exube- 
rance of his favourite food. Both the former and the 
latter retain the same habits in a state of confinement ; 
the one filling every seam and chink of his cage with 
grain, crumbs of bread, &c., and the other sticking up, 
not only insects, but flesh, and the bodies of such birds 
as are thrown in to him, on nails or sharpened sticks 
fixed up for the purpose. Nor, say others, is this 
practice of the shrike difficult to be accounted for. 
Nature has given to this bird a strong, sharp, and, 
powerful beak, a broad head, and great strength in the 
muscles of his neck ; but his legs, feet, and claws, are. 
