Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, volume 1.djvu/329

Rh mice, which form the principal food of the grown birds at all seasons. The Loggerheads rear only one brood in the season.

Whilst this species is on wing, its motions are very rapid and direct, its flight being produced by quick flutterings of the wings, without any apparent undulation. The bird alights in a sudden firm manner, like a Hawk, stands erect, silent and watchful, until it spies its prey on the ground, when it suddenly pounces upon it, striking it first with its bill, but seizing it with its claws so immediately after, that the most careful observation alone can enable one to decide as to the priority of either action. I have never seen it attack birds, nor stick its prey on thorns in the manner of the Great American Shrike.

This bird appears in Louisiana only at intervals, and seldom remains more than a few weeks in December or January. It never comes near houses, although it frequents the fields around them. It has no note at this period, and appears singly, alighting on the stacks and fences, where it stands perched for a considerable time, carefully looking around over the ground. As soon as the spot is thoroughly examined, it flies off to another, and there renews its search.

I have given you, kind reader, the representation of a pair of these Shrikes, contending for a mouse. The difference of plumage in the sexes is scarcely perceptible ; but I have thought it necessary to figure both, in order to shew the quarrelsome disposition of these birds even when united by the hymeneal band.

, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 134.—Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 72.

, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. iii. p. 57. PI. 22. fig. 8.

Adult Male. Plate LVII. Fig. 1.

Bill of moderate length, straightish, robust, acute, compressed; upper mandible with the dorsal outline a little arched, the tip declinate, the edges acute and overlapping, with a sharp process near the tip; lower mandible with the dorsal line a little convex, the tip acute and ascending. Nostrils basal, lateral, half closed by an arched membrane. Head large. Neck and body robust. Feet of ordinary length; tarsus scutellate before, acute behind; toes free, the lateral ones nearly equal; claws arched, compressed, acute.