NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 157 



Mr Chapman exhibited and made some remarks upon a fine 

 specimen of a very rare butterfly, Pajnlio zalmoxis — from Central 

 Africa — a species which was figured for the first time by Mr 

 Hewitson in 1864; also a series of specimens oi Melanip'pe hastata, 

 bred last month from caterpillars found in August near Gareloch- 

 head. Mr Chapman remarked that though entomological authors 

 had recorded that the caterpillar of this moth is gregarious and 

 feeds on the common birch, he had taken it while feeding on 

 Myrica Gale, and always found it singly, not in groups. 



PAPERS READ. 



I. — Remarhs on the Great Grey Shrike (Lanius excuhitor), and 

 Northern Shrike {L. borealis), with illustrative specimens. 



By Mr Eobert Gray. 



The author of this paper remarked that out of nearly thirty 

 Grey Shrikes killed in Scotland that had come under his observa- 

 tion, only one could be regarded, when subjected to the test of 

 recent descriptions published by Messrs Sharpe and Dresser, in 

 the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, as a perfect 

 adult bird. It possessed a double bar on the wing, and was 

 totally free from vermicular markings on the under surface — two 

 of the alleged characteristic distinctions of the true Lanius excuhitor. 

 The others, however, had but one wing spot, and were more or 

 less marked with transverse vermiculations, one in particular, 

 killed in Ayrshire, bearing so strong a general resemblance to the 

 adult female of the true L. borealis of North America, as to be 

 almost identical. 



Looking, therefore, to the fact that nearly all the Shrikes 

 which visit Scotland are strongly marked on the under surface, 

 it would appear that either the descriptions of Messrs Sharpe and 

 Dresser are defective, or these Scottish migrants must be referred 

 to a race or variety between the two species in question, existing 

 somewhere to the east and north-east of Britain. Mr Gray 

 further remarked that in the distribution of markings of the tail 

 feathers scarcely two of his specimens were alike, and that even 

 in apparently old birds no outward trace of a second bar on the 

 wing could be found, showing that this feature is not the result 

 of age. 



