_Lanius ludovicianus ludovicianus. Case 4, Fig. 55_
A gray bird with black wings and tail marked with
white which shows in flight; smaller than the
Northern Shrike with a black forehead and unmarked
breast. L. 9.
_Range._ Florida north to North Carolina, west to
Louisiana.
The Loggerhead has the general habits of his larger northern cousin the
"Butcher-bird," but he feeds, as a rule, on smaller game. Grasshoppers
and lizards form the larger part of his fare and the barbed wire fences
not infrequently are his shambles. A flight is ended by an upward swing
to the chosen perch which may be a tree-top, a telegraph wire, or
lightning-rod tip. From such a lookout he keeps a sharp watch for his
prey, which he detects at surprisingly long distances; meanwhile
uttering the gurgles, squeaks and pipes which constitute his song. The
nest is built in hedges or low trees in early March. The 3-5 eggs are
dull white thickly marked with brown and lavender.
The Migrant Shrike (_Lanius ludovicianus migrans_) is a northern race of
the Loggerhead from which it differs only in being somewhat paler above
and grayer below. It is a Summer Resident from Kansas and western North
Carolina to Minnesota and Maine and winters from the Middle States
southward.
Generally speaking, it may be said that any Shrike found north of
Maryland in the winter is a Northern Shrike; that any Shrike found north
of Virginia in the summer is a Migrant Shrike, and that any Shrike found
south of that state in the summer is a Loggerhead.