The Shrike. 
Delanson, N. Y., Dec. 27 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Including the familiar English spar¬ 
row and the ruffed grouse now nearly extinct, 
there are not over fifteen species of birds rep¬ 
resented here from mid December to Febru¬ 
ary. Some of these retire to warmer valleys 
during long continued cold. I rarely meet 
with more than six or eight on the most fav¬ 
orable day. The addition of a persistent song¬ 
ster to the list is doubly welcome, for with 
most birds at this season there is only time 
for conversational notes. 
The snow buntings adrift on the cold wave 
ripple restlessly from knoll to knoll. The 
tree sparrows and goldfinches gossip in the 
neglected garden. Unmindful of the cold, the 
chickadees chat over their luncheon in the 
border of the upland woods; I heard their 
sorrowful whistled note on the still day that 
preceded the storm. Of this woodland com¬ 
pany are the nuthatches and the usual solitary 
downy woodpecker. Down in the hollow the 
jay gurgles and squeals. “Papa,” asked a 
curious youngster, “what bird makes a noise 
like the wheelbarrow before you oiled it?” 
The days come when one must take a longer 
walk to hear even these, so secluded and 
hidden is all life. Sometimes the only voice 
I hear in my snowy round is that of a black- 
feathered rascal signaling to his mate and 
beating low over the windy hills toward the 
Schoharie. The November flock waits a little 
way down the Hudson for these scouts to re¬ 
port. I should never know when we were 
over the ridge of winter but for the crow. 
There is a hopeful outlook from his obser¬ 
vatory even in bleak January. I detect more 
unction in his voice when the days lengthen, 
and we get on the down grade toward spring. 
But to one waiting for a springlike song it is 
always a barren time till the bluebird begins, 
except for the occasional shrike. 
The shrike is not a regular winter visitor; 
sometimes years pass without my hearing his 
song. I heard this bird for the first time one 
March afternoon, a little over two decades 
ago, while the first flakes of a historical bliz¬ 
zard were falling. Except for a minor musical 
performance in December several years later, 
I did not hear the bird again until last Janu¬ 
ary. Here in eastern New York the month 
was mild, spring came in February, but it is 
said that the winter in the Far North was the 
hardest in twenty years. Shortly after the 
holidays there were rumors of a singing bird 
about. The children reported it on their ar¬ 
rival home from school. Some of my neigh¬ 
bors also heard and guessed it was an im¬ 
prudent robin. There were several mornings 
when something like a faraway bird song float¬ 
ed down to me over the snowy fields. I won¬ 
dered if the mild weather had loosened the 
stops in a jay’s throat. I had quite forgotten 
the shrike. Not till Jan. 22, when I should¬ 
ered my ax and broke a path up to the pas¬ 
ture, where I proposed to cut my year’s fire¬ 
wood out of the encroaching saplings, did 1 
learn the source of this “unfrozen melody.” 
I found the singer in the top of a tall white 
birch. His very attitude implied the desire to 
please a good listener. My wood pile did not 
grow rapidly. I had a rare opportunity to ob¬ 
serve this polyglot songster and improved it. 
Some of his notes suggested the robin’s carol, 
and there were occasional bubblings that re¬ 
minded me of a coarse canary. He had a 
few of the jay’s ventriloquial notes by heart, 
which accounted for my mistake on a previous 
morning. For three days the bird kept me 
company, often warbling for many minutes in 
succession, and punctuating the performance 
with catbird calls. On the first day of our ac¬ 
quaintance he must have spent at least half of 
the time within one hundred yards of me. 
When he flew beyond eye or earshot it was 
usually because I approached too near his tree, 
but he always returned, even after frequent in¬ 
terruptions, and resumed his warbling and 
mewing. His favorite position was the white 
birch on higher ground; when my interest had 
outwardly abated he moved nearer to a sturdy 
hickory in a little gully. These two trees 
were taller than the rest, and shrike-like he 
perched on the topmost twigs. Nothing was 
lacking that a tyro might identify him. 
My account of the shrike that evening so 
excited the curiosity of the family that we 
planned to drive up to the field if the bird 
sang again. Walking for the wife and young¬ 
sters was out of the question, for the snow 
was a foot deep on the level, and my path was 
not as yet well beaten. On the bright, still 
day that followed we could hear the bird before 
we left the house, and when we arrived at the 
wild pasture he was in the hickory top and 
still singing. I imagine that the shrike never 
had a more appreciative audience. 
On the third day the shrike was still con¬ 
stant, but the weather moderated and at dark 
it came on to rain. Late in the evening there 
was a shower, with the summer accompani¬ 
ment of thunder and lightning. The shrike 
was gone when I resumed my work on the 
following morning, and two weeks passed be¬ 
fore I saw another. The weather was again 
wintry. This bird came warbling from tree to 
tree along the pasture ledge, perched and sang 
for a few minutes like my first acquaintance in 
the accustomed hickory and passed on, his 
black and white showing like convict stripes 
in his flight. 
On Feb. 22 I heard the bluebirds going over, 
two weeks ahead of their schedule, and be¬ 
fore noon a happy pair was inspecting the 
woodpecker’s burrow on the veranda column. 
There were some stormy days afterward that 
brought the snow buntings down from the 
north, but I saw no more of the shrike. 
One word more about the shrike’s song. Be¬ 
sides the decided catbird call or mew, his 
warble reminds me of the catbird’s. There is 
not a little of the same ec.stacy, the same 
struggle for expression. It has been said that 
these notes are imitations used to lure small 
birds within striking distance, for in spite of 
his song, the shrike is hawk-like at heart 
Thoreau, who heard the bird but twice—both 
times in early March—surmised that it was his 
mating song. Whatever the inspiration, the 
voice of this Arctic mockingbird is not as 
coarse and strident as some have testified. It 
must be heard in the border of the leafless 
woods, with the snowy hills in perspective, to 
be appreciated. Will W. Christman. 
Causes of Bird Scarcity. 
Corinth, N. Y., Jan. 2 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Within a few days I have had long 
talks with hunters on the Upper Hudson River. 
Through this region bird hunting has been 
followed by professionals and by amateurs, for 
the land is especially favorable for develop¬ 
ment of grouse and woodcock, while Saratoga, 
with its hotels and transient population, offered 
an easy market for large numbers of birds— 
at least, in former times. The result is, in Sar¬ 
atoga and Warren counties, hunters learned 
more about grouse and woodcock than did the 
men in other counties who are deer and bear 
hunters. 
These professional hunters say the migrat¬ 
ing woodcock came down the Lake Champlain 
gut or valley in the full of the October moon 
and remained about a week. Another version 
is that they came in the full moon of Sep¬ 
tember, and August, too. But generally speak¬ 
ing, the birds did come “in the full moon.” 
Cover which had only a bird or two of sum¬ 
mer breeding, would suddenly have many 
birds. Those birds passed on in a few days, 
or, as sometimes happened, the hunter with his 
good dog, (the English setter is a favorite) 
would clean out a cover one day, and next 
day would find other birds in it. 
Dave Ellis, a professional hunter, who 
mourns that the game laws have broken his 
heart, says that the woodcock came down the 
Lake Champlain hollow, and that there was 
good hunting from July 1 to the middle of 
October. How good may be divined from his 
boast in his red-letter shoots with a hunting 
partner; they killed fifty-two pairs in the half 
of one day and all the next in the Schroon 
River bottoms. The following year, hunting 
over the same bottom, he killed seventeen 
birds. His week’s work as a hunter in No¬ 
vember and December was twenty-five grouse, 
but how many he killed when the birds were 
young he did not say. In the old days they 
brought as much as $1.80 a pair in Saratoga 
summer market. He claims that he killed no 
old toms or hens. He gave as his reason the 
fact that old birds raise better broods of 
young, take care of the young more effectually 
and educate them better. He offered, too, in 
favor of professional hunting, that the pro¬ 
fessionals killed enemies of the birds—hawks, 
foxes, mink, ermine, owls, wild house cats and 
