RED-BACKED SHRIKE. 141 



Thomas Allts, in 1844, wrote : — 



Laniiis coUurio. — Red-backed Shrike — Not very uncommon near 

 Sheffield and Doncaster ; it breeds occasionally near Halifax, but is 

 becoming scarce ; it is met with occasionally near Huddersfield and 

 York, but is not known in the East Riding. 



This bird is of much less frequent occurrence in the county 

 than the Great Grey Shrike. It has been chronicled as 

 breeding in a few instances, but does not now, so far as my 

 knowledge extends, repair annually to any locality, with 

 the exception of Sedbergh, where it is a fairly regular nester, 

 though formerly it seems to have ranked as a somewhat 

 constant visitor, for the late Henry Denny, who was an 

 excellent naturalist, in his Leeds Catalogue, 1840, cited this 

 species as not uncommon in several localities near Leeds. 

 Allis's statement, quoted above, refers to its occurrence in 

 the West Riding ; though, as regards Huddersfield, the late 

 J. Varley stated he could well remember it as an almost annual 

 visitor in that neighbourhood, where he had himself taken 

 both the nest and eggs ; the remarks respecting East Yorkshire 

 must, also, be modified. When on its migration it has been 

 observed both in the spring and autumn, but its visits then 

 are few and far between, and, generally speaking, it may now 

 be ranked as a bird of passage, occasionally remaining to breed. 



The following are the occasions on which it has nested 

 in the county : — Dr. Farrar of Barnsley obtained a pair of 

 old birds, which were snared on their nest, in Cliff Wood 

 near that town in the year 1826. Mr. H. Smurthwaite of 

 Richmond, in Morris's " Naturalist " (1854, p. 81), mentioned 

 that eggs in the collection of his friend Mr. Wood were taken 

 from a nest near that place. Dr. Hall communicated to 

 the Field (1869, p. 435), a note that a nest with four young 

 birds had been taken within a mile of the town of Sheffield 

 in the early summer of 1868. 



Regarding the nesting of this bird at Beverley in 1876, 

 Mr. F. Boyes communicated the following particulars to the 

 Zoologist (1877, p. 157) : — " The Red-backed Shrike is a 

 very rare bird here, and I cannot hear that one has been 

 seen for fifteen years. On May the 27th a hen bird of this 



