LANIUS. 



313 



secret of whith I soon discovered. He had secured a mate, and 

 daily did I watch for the nest, which T thought they would pre- 

 pare. Late on the evening of the 23rd June, happennig to look 

 up at the old nest, to my surprise I found it occupied by the female, 

 the male the while sitting on a branch near her. Next mornmg on 

 searching the nest I found four eggs. "Whether this nest was 

 prepared^ the year previous by these birds or by another pair I 



cannot tell. p t -,. j mi. 



" That day, the day of the robbery, the female disappeared, ihe 

 male follo^^•ecl next day, hut only to return after two or three days 

 and recommence with renewed energy his chattering and warbhng. 

 This he continued daily till near the end of July, when, as before, 

 he suddenly ceased to sing. I then found that he had again 

 secured a mate, whether the old female or a new bride I am not 

 certain ; they soon set about making a nest on a neighbouring tree, 

 very cunningly, as I thought, selected ; and now the young birds 

 reared are nearly full-fledged. An old nest, evidently of last year's 

 make, was brought me the other day with five eggs, but the linhuj, 

 as by the way was done in the one in the garden, had been wholly 

 removed and new grass and khus substituted." 



Major C. T. Bingham writes : — " Breeds both at Allahabad and 

 at Delhi in May, June, and July. At the former place I never got 

 the eggs, but have seen some that were taken ; but at Delhi I found 

 numbers' of their nests in June and July, and one in May. It 

 makes a much softer nest than either of the two above-mentioned 

 Hhrikes. One nest I took on the 15th June was composed wholly 

 of tow, but generally they have an outer foundation of twigs, and 

 are lined with tow, bits of cotton, human hair, or rags. Some eggs 

 are a yellow-white, with very faint marks, others are miniatures 

 of the eggs of L. lahtora. ^^ 



"Five is the greatest number I have found in one nest.' 



Mr. W. Theobald makes the follo^^ing note of this bird's breeding 

 in the neighbourhood of Find Dadan Khan and Katas in the Salt 



Kauge : — 



" Lays from the commencement of May to the middle of June. 

 Eggs three or four in number ; shape varies from ovato-pyriform to 

 blunt ovato-pyriform, and measuring from 0-73 to 0-87 inch in 

 length and from 0*55 to 0-65* inch in breadth. Colour, same as 

 L. enjthronotus, also creamy or yellowish white, spotted with darker. 

 Nest compact, in forks of thorny trees ; outside fibrous stalks, 

 bound with silk or spider-web, and "covered with lichens or cocoons, 

 imitating a weathered structure ; inside lined with fine grass and 

 vegetable down." 



Colonel C. H. T. Marshall, writing from Murree, says :— 

 "These little Shrikes breed in the hills, as well as the plains, 

 up to 5000 feet high." 



* I think that there must be some error in these dimensions, for mine are 

 taken from forty-five specimens, the largest and smaUest, out of some hundreds 

 of eggs. — A. O. n. 



