THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 215 



smaller companies of Shore Larks were seen almost daily from 

 the middle of October to the middle of November, and hundreds of 

 them were shot. In the same year I obtained the first example of 

 Laniiis borealis, an old male in full adult plumage. Since that 

 time the Shore Larks have steadily increased here from year to 

 year, and since the last ten years, at least, make their appearance in 

 hundreds of thousands, so that during the autumn months and 

 in favourable Aveather, flocks of from fifty to a hundred indi- 

 viduals may be seen daily passing in uninterrupted sequence across 

 and along the island, from early morning till afternoon ; nor does 

 anybody any longer think it worth the trouble to shoot this charm- 

 ing and formerly much-prized visitor. 



Since the same time, the Northern Shrike has also steadily 

 increased here, though, as compared with the Shore Larks, its 

 number is still a very modest one. Nor would one expect this to 

 be otherwise, seeing that this, hke all other related species of the 

 Shrike genus, number in general much fewer individuals than the 

 various species of the Lark family, all of which are strikingly rich in 

 individuals. 



We can hardly regard the advance of this Shrike as far as 

 central Germany to be contemporaneous with its appearance in 

 Heligoland, for its occurrence could never have escaped the notice 

 of so eminent an observer as Naumann, who neither mentions it in 

 his great work, nor in the supplements which were concluded about 

 1855, and appeared as the thirteenth volume of the chief work in 

 1860. Brehm mentions this species, as follows, in his Volhtdndiger 

 Vogelfang aller EurojMischen Vogel : ^ 'It lives in northern Asia, 

 whence it passes as a straggler into eastern Europe.' Accordingly, 

 Brehm himself had not, until then, met with it in Germany. In 

 Heligoland, however, even at that time it apjoeared regularly 

 every autumn, and at jiresent one or more examples are seen 

 almost daily, in favourable weather, from the middle of October to 

 the middle of November. Thus, on the 22nd of October, twelve 

 large Shrikes were seen here ; seven of these were shot, and proved, 

 with the exception of one of L. excubitor, to be all pure-coloured 

 examples of L. borealis. The former species in general occurs here 

 much more rarely than L. borealis. During my long experience 

 I have only obtained two old examples of L. excubitor with their 

 under-sides of a jjure white ; whereas, aliiiost every autumn, one or 

 two old examples of L. borealis in adult plumage, besides about ten 

 or twelve females, younger birds and hybrids, more or less nearly 

 related to L. borealis, are shot here. However, like all the Shrikes, 

 this species also is a very cautious bird, which, on the bare surface 



' Complete Fovlin;/ of all Europea)i Binl-^. 



