C'^talogtjf: of Canadian birds. 597 



island, and in the vicinity of Kingston; one nest I found, built in a 

 thorn bush about three feet from the ground, was completed on 29th 

 April ; on the 4th May, it contained five eggs, speckled and zoned and 

 smaller than the eggs of L. borealis. The old birds were very tamt 

 and did not behave in the same way as those of the other species, 

 which latter kept far off and perched high up in the trees; there 

 were no large trees near this nest ; May 6th, found a nest in a simi- 

 lar location, containing four fresh eggs, birds were very tame, allow- 

 ing of my approach within a few feet; April 3rd, 1890, I saw a pair 

 of migrant shrikes, and on the 28th found the nest containing seven 

 eggs in a thorn bush; on the 7th May found another nest with five 

 eggs, incubated, built so low in the thorn bush that I could look into 

 it when standing on the ground. April i8th, 1892, I found a migrant 

 shrike's nest in a thorn bush in a pasture field, which, on the 29th, 

 contained six eggs; May 2nd, 1898, found a migrant shrike's nest in 

 a thorn bush with six fresh eggs; April 6th, 1899, I saw a pair of 

 migrant shrikes, and their nest on the 29th April with six eggs, built 

 as usual in a thorn tree in a pasture field, and no great height from 

 the ground; I could refer to perhaps twenty other instances of this 

 bird breeding as above in thorn bushes in pasture fields the last 

 week of April or first week in May. (Rev. C. J. Young.) This bird 

 begins its nest around Ottawa in April, and lays five, six or seven 

 eggs ; the nest is built in thorn trees or bushes from four to ten feet 

 high, and is composed of branches, rootlets and strings, with woolly 

 lining united to feathers and hairs. (Garneazi.) A detailed account 

 of the breeding of this bird in the vicinity of Ottawa, Ont., is given 

 in The Auk, Vol. XXII., p. 314, by the Rev. G. Eifrig. 



622a. White-rumped Shrike. 



Lanius ludovicianus excuhitorides (Swains.) Coues. 1872. 



This is the characteristic species of the whole region along the 

 49th parallel from Pembina to the Rocky mountains. At Turtle 

 mountain, during the last week in July, I found a family of these 

 birds in an isolated clump of bushes. The young, four in number, 

 had just left the nest, which was discovered in the crotch of a bush 

 five or six feet from the ground. The nest proper rested upon a 

 bulky mass of interlaced twigs ; it was composed of some white weed 

 (AnapbaHs margaritacea) that grows abundantly in the vicinity, 

 matted together with strips of fibrous bark. {Coues.) 



