598 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
Food. —Insects, especially grasshoppers, constitute the larger part of its food 
[July 28-October 24 in Colfax County, 89 per cent grasshoppers (Kalmbach) ], 
though beetles, moths, caterpillars, ants, wasps, and a few spiders also are taken. 
While it occasionally catches small birds, its principal vertebrate food is small mam¬ 
mals, as field mice, shrews, and moles; and when possible it obtains lizards (Hen- 
shaw). 
General Habits. —The harsh strident note of the White-rumped 
Shrike often calls attention to a gray and black figure perched on the 
top of a mesquite on the desert plains, on the tip of a fouquieria or 
dasylirion spike in a dry side canyon, or, among the ranches, on a 
fence, hedgerow, or telegraph pole. 
Along the Pecos valley at Roswell and Carlsbad in June, 1899, 
Mr. Bailey found the Shrikes common, going about in families, the 
young being noticeable from their clouded plumage. Although when a 
few miles from Tucumcari, on June 17, 1903, Mr. Surber saw several 
wandering families, about twenty birds altogether, a week later, near 
the Concho, we saw a belated Shrike fly to her nest in the top of a low 
Forsteria tree. Two were seen, September 1, on telegraph poles, good 
lookouts and favorite perches, between Las Vegas and Mora. A 
specimen was taken in immature plumage September 30, and its well- 
filled stomach contained mainly beetles and grasshoppers. 
From Mesilla Park, Professor Merrill writes: “The White-rumped 
Shrike is an always noisy resident, rivalling the Cactus Wren in clamor. 
He is always picking on some other bird, be it large or small; he even 
fights excessively with his own kind. The nest is made in April in 
various trees, the more thorny the better. Yuccas and big mesquites 
afford good places. As in the east, he delights in osage orange hedges 
as nesting sites. For food he eats many insects, grasshoppers, big 
beetles, lizards (including horned lizards), mice, young birds, and 
birds’ eggs. I have found numbers of remains of horned lizards and 
others, with mice skulls, impaled upon yucca points. The most daring 
deed of this feathered thug I have ever witnessed was a cold-blooded 
assault to kill made upon a male Cooper Tanager. Pouncing suddenly 
upon the Tanager, which was seated upon a fence wire, the Shrike 
knocked it limp with one peck, then picked it up in his claws and started 
to fly away with it. I frightened him until he dropped his prey but 
received from him a vociferous protest” (MS). 
After seeing a Shrike near the Santa Clara Puebla, October 16, 
1904, Mr. Gaut found the dried carcass of a Sonora white-footed mouse 
hanging on a barbed wire fence. 
Interesting testimony regarding the use of impaled prey comes 
from J. R. Watson, of the University of New Mexico. He says: 
“The Shrike ... in the vicinity of Albuquerque . . . feeds, 
during the late fall and winter, quite freely on the lizards (Uta starts - 
