105 



Shrikes, were fond of bathing ; but whereas the males of the 

 Red-backed Shrike used to abuse the female (No. 2 nearly killed 

 both No. I and No. 3 in a paroxysm of temper), the two Wood- 

 chats, in a far smaller cage, lived in unity and concord. Moreover, 

 they had a distinct idea of the difference between meum and tuiim. 

 Of course, they both tugged at the same Grasshopper or the same 

 Frog (for I gave them small Edible Frogs and Tadpoles), but they 

 never lost their tempers ; and if either had hung up a dainty on 

 the wires of the cage, the other, however hungry, would not think 

 of touching his fellow's spoil. 



Before I pass on to the Grey Shrikes, I may say that, though I 

 lost the female Woodchat in the following September, when she 

 had not lost a feather, — yet I nursed the male bird through a long 

 moult, which commenced in mid August, and was all but finished 

 when he died of a surfeit of Blackbeetles, through the cook's over- 

 indulgence, in the following December. I had placed him for 

 warmth in the kitchen, and he used to watch the Blackbeetles 

 flopping into a beetle-trap ; whenever he saw a beetle tumble in, 

 he gave a war-hoop, to let the servant know, and in order to 

 humour him, they attended to his wants. He never sang as a 

 nestling, but some days before his death I had the pleasure of 

 hearing him singing a low but sweet song. 



Of our three British species of Grey Shrikes, the Lesser Grey 

 alone is of extreme rarity with us. It has only, so far as memory 

 serves me, been captured three times : once on the coast of Nor- 

 folk, and twice in Cornwall. Up to the present time I have failed 

 to obtain living examples. 



The best known of the Grey Shrikes that visit England is the 

 Great Grey Shrike. It is scarcely to be distinguished from Pallas's 

 Grey Shrike, which has also occurred occasionally in England, but 

 more often on the east coast of Scotland. These two species 

 probably interbreed somewhere in Northern Europe, and a bird 

 which I believe to be a hybrid* was shot near Carlisle in January 



* But Mr. Goodchild, F.Z.S., considers this bird to be a pure-bred Pallas's 

 Shrike. [It is almost identical in coloration with the Asiatic-, or Pallas's 

 Grey Shrike from Archangel, now in the Bird Gallery at the Natural History 

 Museum. J.G.G.] 



