founded the habits of the two. Its general color is the same they both have the white bar across the wings, and the difference consists mainly in the outline of the formwhich in the shrike expresses compactness and strength, with short wings and tail, while in the mocking bird it expresses airiness, with graceful length and elegance of plumage-but the difference cannot be easily distinguished when the shrike is on the wing. There is another point of resemblance to the mocking bird, which is still more remarkable. Audubon asserts roundly, that the shrike can imitate the cries of birds, such as sparrows and other little people, so perfectly, that not only are we deceived, but the sparrows themselves, thinking it is one of their own kith and kin screaming in the claws of the hawk, flock thither in sympathetic terror, from their coverts, when the cunning mocker pounces upon one of them sure enough.

Audubon in his Biography of Birds, says:

"This valiant little warrior possesses the faculty of imitating the notes of other birds, especially such as are indicative of pain. Thus it will often mimic the cries of sparrows and other small birds, so as to make you believe you hear them screaming in the claws of a hawk; and I strongly sus pect this is done for the purpose of inducing others to come out from their coverts to the rescue of their suffering brethren. On several occasions I have seen it in the act of screaming in this manner, when it would suddenly dart from its perch into a thicket, from which there would immediately issue the real cries of a bird on which it had seized. On the banks of the Mississippi, I saw one which for several days in succession had regularly taken its stand on the top of a tall tree, where it from time to time imitated the cries of the swamp and song-sparrows, and shortly afterwards would pitch down like a hawk, with its wings close to its body, seldom failing to obtain the object of its pursuit, which it would sometimes follow even through the briars and brambles among which it had sought refuge. When unable to