There is one compensation beyond the general interest of the thing for the student who has to endure the sight of the sufferings of the shrikes victims in order to get an adequate idea of its conduct of life. The redeeming thing is found in the fact that in the winter time the great majority of the shrikes victims are the pestilential English sparrows, whom every bird lover would be willing to see sacrificed to make a shrikes supper, though he might regret the attending pain pangs.

My own observations of the shrike have been limited to the city of Chicago and to the fields immediately beyond its walls. For those unfamiliar with the subject it may be best to say that in the winter season the shrike is abundant in the parks of the great smoky city by the lake, and not infrequently it invades the pulsing business heart of the town. No one ever saw the placidity of the shrike disturbed in the least. It will perch on the top of a small tree and never move so much as a feather, barring its tail, which is in well nigh constant motion, when the clanging electric cars rush by or when the passing wagons shake its perch to the foundation.

The Great Northern Shrike reaches the city from its habitat beyond the Canada line about the first of November. For four years in succession I saw my first Northern Shrike of the season on November first, a day set down in the Church Calendar for the commemoration of "All Saints." It is eminently in keeping with the hypocritical character of Mr. Shrike, sinner that he is, to put in an appearance on so holy a day. From the time of his coming until late March and sometimes well into April, the shrike remains an urban resident and harries the sparrow tribe to its hearts content.

As far as my own observation goes the Great Northern Shrike in winter does not put very much food in cold storage. I have never seen many victims of the birds rapacity impaled upon thorns. Perhaps I should qualify this statement a bit by saying that I have never seen many victims hanging up in one place. I have watched carefully something like a score of the birds, and while every one occasionally hung up one of its victims, there was nothing approaching the "general storehouse" of food, so often described. It is my belief that this habit of impaling its prey upon thorns or of hanging it by the neck in a crotch is one that is confined largely to the summer season, and especially to the nesting period.

The Great Northern Shrike has been said by some writers to be a bully as well as a butcher. I have never seen any evidence of this trait in his character. He does not seem to care for what some small human souls consider the delight of cowing weaker vessels. When the shrike gives chase to its feathered quarry it gives chase for the sole purpose of obtaining food. While the bird is not a bully in the sense in which I have written, it displays at times the cruelty of a fiend. It has apparently something of the cat in its nature. It delights to play with its prey after it has been seized, and by one swift stroke reduce it to a state of helplessness.

Every morning during the month of February, 1898, a shrike came to a tree directly in front of my window on Pearson street, in Chicago. The locality abounded in sparrows and it was for that reason the shrike was such a constant visitor. The bird paid no attention to the faces at the window, and made its excursions for victims in plain view. The shrike is not the most skilled hunter in the world. About three out of four of his quests are bootless, but as he makes many of them he never lacks for a meal.