Lanins ludovicianus ini grans . 
'Bethel, Maine. 
1903 
June S 
(5) 
hundred yards distant, but the brush-heap to which the female took 
the Swallow on that occasion is within thirty yards of the nest. 
Neither bird was about it when I discovered it this morning so I 
kept on to the other locality beyond. Scarcely had I, reached it 
when the male Shrike appeared, skimming low over the wide field on 
the western side of the road, bearing some rather large, dangling 
object in his bill. He took it into a small, stunted elm by the 
roadside and affixed it to a short branch, spending less than a 
minute in the operation. After he had flown away I went to the 
tree and found a Pickerel Prog sitting cross-wise on the branch, 
his hind legs well doubled at the knees, his head resting on his 
folded front paws, his eyes wide open. So very lifelike was his 
attitude and expression that I could not believe him dead until I 
touched him. He was so perfectly balanced that I thought at first 
that the Shrike had merely placed him carefully on the branch, but 
on closer examination I found that he was firmly impaled on a short 
pointed twig which had penetrated half an inch or more into the 
fleshy part of the thigh. He was a fair-sized specimen but very 
thin and slender. 
I searched all the scattered trees and fence posts in the 
neighborhood in the hope of finding more victims but -without suc¬ 
cess. The Bluebird had been removed from the willow since my last 
visit on the afternoon of the 5th. 
