844 SHRIKE 



been mentioned by the ancients. Sundevall, however, considers 

 that the Malacocraneus of Aristotle was one of them, as indeed 

 Turner had before suggested, though repelling the latter's supposi- 

 tion that Aristotle's Tyrannus was another, as well as Belon's 

 reference of Collyrion. 



The species designated Shrike by Turner is the Lanius excubitor 

 of Linnaeus and nearly all succeeding authors, nowadays ^ commonly 

 known as the Greater Butcher-bird, Ash-coloured or Great Grey 

 Shrike, — a bird which visits the British Islands pretty regularly, 

 though not numerously, in autumn or winter, occasionally prolong- 

 ing its stay into the next summer ; but it has rarely if ever been 

 ascertained to breed here, though often asserted to have done so. 

 This is the more remarkable since it breeds more or less commonly 

 on the Continent from the north of France to within the Arctic Circle. 

 Exceeding a Song-Thrush in linear measurements, it is a much less 

 bulky bird, of a pearly-grey above with a well-defined black band 

 passing from the forehead to the ear-coverts ; beneath it is nearly 

 white, or — and this is particularly observable in Eastern examples 

 — barred with du^sky. The quill-feathers of the wings, and of the 

 elongated tail, are variegated with black and white, but are mostly 

 of the former, though what there is of the latter shews very con- 

 spicuously, especially at the base of the remiges, where it forms 

 either a single or a double patch. ^ Much smaller than this is the 



^ According to Charleton, Willughby and Ray, it was in their day called in 

 many parts of England " Wierangle " (Germ. Wiirgengel and TFurger, the 

 Strangler) ; but it is hard to see how a bird which few people in England could 

 know by sight should have a popular name, and Chaucer's use of it in his 

 Assemhlye of Foules may be ascribed to his fondness for outlandish words. 



- On this character great store has been laid by some recent writers, who 

 maintain that the birds presenting only a single patch, with some other minor 

 distinctions, as the ban-ed breast above mentioned, come from the far East and 

 deserve specific recognition as the Lanius major of Pallas. But it is admitted 

 that every intermediate form occurs, Und Prof. CoUett has now shewn {Ibis, 

 1886, pp. 30-40) that the typical L. excuhitor and typical L. major may be found 

 in one and the same brood, and also that this occasional divergence is due neither 

 to age nor sex. That it does depend to some extent on locality is allowed ; for, 

 though examples with the single patch {L. viajor) occasionally reach Great 

 Britain, it is asserted that nearly all the specimens from Eastern Siberia are so 

 marked. But it is also found that by almost insensible degi'ees other (and some- 

 times more important) distinctions are manifested, and the extreme terms of the 

 several series have been exalted to the rank of " species " — or at least local races. 

 These are too many to be here enumerated, but it may be mentioned that the 

 Great Grey Shrike of North America, which ordinarily has the lower plumage 

 strongly barred, and is usually known as L. horealis, seems to be only one of 

 these divergent forms, though perhaps the most divergent, as might be expected 

 from the wholly distinct area it occupies. Yet occasionally examples occur in the 

 Old "World, which there is no reason to suppose have an American origin, indis- 

 tinguishable from the typical L. horealis, and an uninterrupted series from one 



