. The Canadian horticulturist [monthly], 1892. Gardening; Canadian periodicals. The Canadian Horticuliurist. 261 THE LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE. rHIS bird, doubtless, derives its common name (Butcher bird) from the fact that he slays many more creatures than he devours. He seems to have an insatiate love of carnage. I have known him to kill birds when enough food was stored in his larder to last him for weeks. He has the curious habit of impaling on thorns, or sharp twigs, all the carcasses not required fot immediate consumption. He generally makes his residence in some locality in which there are thor
. The Canadian horticulturist [monthly], 1892. Gardening; Canadian periodicals. The Canadian Horticuliurist. 261 THE LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE. rHIS bird, doubtless, derives its common name (Butcher bird) from the fact that he slays many more creatures than he devours. He seems to have an insatiate love of carnage. I have known him to kill birds when enough food was stored in his larder to last him for weeks. He has the curious habit of impaling on thorns, or sharp twigs, all the carcasses not required fot immediate consumption. He generally makes his residence in some locality in which there are thorn trees, and woe unto-any small bird which may enter into his chosen territory. He is remarkably swift on the wing, and when he makes a dash he seldom misses the object of his pursuit. I have seen him with seeming amusement catching large moths and grasshoppers, which he also impaled after cutting off their wings and legs. Sometimes he impales mice and frogs ahve to perish miserably. The majority of bodies thus impaled are eaten by bugs or left to wither in the sun and be blown Fig. 64.—Laxius Lidoviciants (Linn). An instance of desperate rapaciousness is related by Mr. Macnamara, a blacksmith in Kingston. He was startled by the screaming of a sparrow, chased into his shop by a shrike, which certainly would have slain his intended victim only for the timely interference of a sympathizing man. Sometimes a shrike will attack a larger bird. Mr. H. Stratford, Naturalist, Kingston, while out hunting for specimens, observed a robin being attacked by a shrike, which he shot in order to save the robin's life. I have known him bolt through an open window into an inhabited room and attack a caged canary. The shrike is not provided with the murderous talons of the hawk or the owl, but with his powerful beak he generally crushes the skull of his victim. Of the two species of shrikes which visit us here, the Loggerhead or Grey shrike is the more common. He comes from the south earl
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