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upon your shoulder or your hand. With regard to the present 

 species, it is only right to say that the gentleman who has paid 

 most attention to it in confinement is my friend Mr. John Young, 

 M.B.O.U., who has kept examples for several successive autumns. 

 His object in doing so, was, to ascertain at what time this species 

 naturally performed the moult. He has, unfortunately, failed 

 hitherto to preserve his examples alive through the manlt; but the 

 fact that he has repeatedly lost Red-backed Shrikes by death in 

 January and February, when in full moult, is full of significance. 

 Two male examples also moulted in the possession of the Zoological 

 Society during the spring, I believe, of 1879 : but exact data hereon 

 is not forthcoming. Nevertheless, its want is in part supplied by 

 the evidence of Mr. Swaysland, the well-known dealer of Brighton, 

 who informs me under date of October 8, 1883, that he believes 

 that the Red-backed Shrike " moults about January or February. 

 The one I had (Mr. Swaysland here alludes to one particular bird, 

 for many examples have passed through his hands,) moulted in 

 January, and I showed him at the Crystal Palace Show this year 

 in full plumage the last week in February." 



I now propose to lay before you the gist of my notes on five 

 Red-backed Shrikes which I kept alive during the summer and 

 autumn of 1883. I received four of them, being a single brood, 

 during the first week in July. They had been taken from a nest 

 in the neighbourhood of Bristol, and appeared to be between four 

 and five weeks old. Their appetites were enormous, and were 

 only surpassed in intensity by their squalls for food. Not that 

 they would help themselves. True, they had begun to pick up, 

 but they preferred to have the supply conveyed into their mouths. 

 The females especially were incessant in their demands for food. 

 As a consequence of their voracity, these young Shrikes slept a 

 good deal during the day. I should except one of the males, 

 which I christened "No. i," for distinction's sake; the other male, 

 a very quarrelsome bird, following as "No. 2 ;" while the females 

 were "No. 3," and "No. 4." No. 4, however, strayed through an 

 open window, before I had had them long, and I saw no more of 

 her. No. i, as I have said, did not gorge himself; as a natural 



