32 Mr. Robert Collett on 



In the summer of 1884, when on the Dovre Fjeld, I made 

 an observation, concerning which there can be no question 

 whatever. On June the 30th, I came across, in the upper- 

 most pine-forests near H jerkin (a locality well known to 

 English tourists), a family of Shrikes, comprising, along 

 with the parent birds, a whole brood of young ones just 

 fledged, and habited accordingly in their peculiar nesting- 

 phimage. As with all yoimg birds, the feathers in this dress 

 were soft and loose, though grown to their full length. Of 

 these young ones, which had unquestionably been hatched 

 togethei', I shot three ; the rest flew off" in company with the 

 parent birds into the forest. 



Two of those killed were males and in every respect typical 

 specimens of L. excubitor, the spot on the secondaries being 

 large and snowy white, with the normal length of 26 mm., 

 in one even 27 mm. The third example, a female, was an 

 equally typical specimen of L. major, not having the faintest 

 trace of any white bases on the secondaries. 



In other respects, the differences between these three indi- 

 viduals were slight in the extreme ; the female and one of the 

 males exhibited a somewhat darker tone on the back than did 

 the other male, which had a clear pearly-grey tint, precisely as 

 in very old and rich-coloured specimens. The brownish-grey 

 edsrinffs observable in most individuals towards the fall of the 

 year were almost wanting in the two males, but distinct in 

 the female. The underparts Avere alike; in all of them the 

 vermiculations on the loose downy feathers were not sharply 

 defined, as is often the case in the autumn and winter plumages 

 of young birds, but narrow, closely arranged, and broken up, 

 as it were, into points ; more especially on the breast and the 

 sides of the neck there was nothing left but the points. The 

 black spot on the first tail-feather was large in the female 

 (about 35 mm.), in one of the males normal (about 20 mm.), 

 in the other small and on one side separated by the white 

 colour. 



Last summer (1885) I made a similar observation in Fin- 

 mark, and shot from a nest a male and a female, of which 

 the former was in every respect a typical specimen of L. ex- 



