41 
Our excursions on the moors are nearly concluded. We are 
on the point of setting out on our return journey, tired of the 
boggy hollows, the willow-scrubs, or the interminable tracts 
covered with loose stones; but retaining the impression of a re- 
markable, and in many respects grand, nature. A peculiarly harsh 
bird-cry rings about us from a group of birch-trees, which grow 
here and there on the flat lichen-covered terrace that forms the 
last step before coming to the valley bottom. We soon see 
that it proceeds from a pair of Great Grey Shrikes (Lanius 
excubitor), who are apprehensive about their nest; this lies large 
and exposed in the top of the biggest of the birches, well-lined 
with white Rype feathers, which at a long distance can be 
seen protruding from the side of the nest—an enticing sight for 
an ornithologist. Here he will be able to obtain a contribution to- 
wards the solution of a question which has often been propounded 
—which race of this species of bird it is which inhabits arctic 
Europe, whether it is the ‘‘single-spotted”’ form, whose wing only 
has one large white spot by the root of the quill feathers (“«L. 
majoy’’), or the typical one, which, besides this spot on the 
primaries, has also a large white spot by the root of the second- 
aries, and therefore may be called the ‘‘ Two-spotted.” Both 
are found indiscriminately during the migration seasons and in 
winter, in nearly all other parts of Europe, and several naturalists 
have therefore believed that the single-spotted and somewhat 
darker ‘‘ Lanius major”? was a really arctic species, which had its 
home in northern Europe and northern Asia, where the typical 
Lanius excubitoy would not be found. 
Within five minutes both examples lie in our hand; but the 
solution of the question is apparently just as far off as before. 
For the fact is, the male proves to be a typical L. excubitor, the 
female an equally strongly-marked ‘‘L. major,” and the young in 
the nest are too small to afford any evidence. 
We learn hence, however, this much, that both forms are 
only varieties, which may occur indiscriminately in these 
northern regions; but they are not good species, since they pair 
with each other (which two distinct species normally never do). 
The typical European form is unquestionably the two spotted 
L. excubitoy ; but it has a strong tendency to variation in the dis- 
