Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-11-10
HEDGEROw MURDERER.
A DOer of Furtive Crimes is the
Great Northern ShriI<e.

Great Northern Shrike.
From the New York sun.
While the rest of the feathered tribes are
discussing the best air lines southwark, the
great northern shrike is taking cognizance
of chill skies with view, not to changing
them for warmer ones. but to making
himself as comfortable may be during
the winter without shifting his quarters.
The shrike, or butcher bird, he is APP
propriately called, is one of the birds that
stay here the year round. Constancy is
one of his few good qualities. Like most
freebooters, he is a hardy fellow. and as
cold has no terrors for him he forms a
pleasant feature of the, winter landscape in
this region, for all that he is the most bru-
tai murderer that wears feathers.
The shrike is the Guietest of birds. keep
ing his plans and affairs entirely to him.
self. Except in the nesting season he al
most invariably travels alone. a wolf in
sleeps clothing, who takes advantage of
me 1act that he possesses the innocent
looking piumage of a songbird to deceive
his victims until his small sharp crooked
.beak has bitten into their brains. He
never strikes like the hawk from the open
out you Will see him. bird slightly small
er than robin dark gray and black with
white markings on his wings and tail fly
Ing along just above the ground. a silent
uneven flight from thicket to thicket. bush
to bush and hedge to hedge, A flock of
In a tree. Quietly the shrike al:ghts. East
ly and deliberately he hops from twig to
tWig, attracting no special attention. One
quick jump a little fiutter, and the unsus-
rectng chickadees have lost one of their
friends. They never dreamed that that
quaker-colored plumage concealed muir
derer. After a few tastes of his victim
the shrike goes on and kills another. So
bloodthirsty is he that he used to go by
the name of nine-kller owing to the popu-
lar belief that he killed and impaled on
thorns nine little victims each day Of
late years 1t is said that his mathematical
accuracy has deteriorated
Greed of slaughter at times makes him
very bold and instances are cited where a
shrike has flown in at a window, dashed
AT a bird cage, grasped the bars with his
claws and struck at the canary within with
such vicious pertinac'ty that he was finally
captured by the indignant owner of the
bird. One of the butcher birds pecuIiarities
IS that ne sometimes. as though ashamed
OF his evil ways, attempts to sing The
result is curious and not altogether unpleas-
ing. 1t is though the sDirits of the
countless little song birds he had slaueh-
tered were trying to sing together inside
of him and his throat wore too small to let
the sound out, resulting in a wondrous
buhblng and gurglinS. while occasionally a
clear note of fine music will escape from
The medley of sound. 1t is not often that
the shrike essays this performance. but
when he does he generally delivers his can
tata in the early morning from the ton
most twig Of a tree, with breast thrown
ont and head raised in as devotional an
attitude as the Pharisee that stood and
prayed.
In the spring he chooses for nesting
place one of his favorite hushy thorn trees
and builds rather bulky nest wherein his
mate. in order that the race of strikers
may grow and multiply, lays eggs to the
goodly number Of six. yellowish white
Tricky specked and dotted with darker
yellow. And in few weeks the young pi-
rates are travelling about the hedges and
bushy byways becoming rapidly conversant
with the ways that are dark for which the
race of shrikes is peculiar.