598 BRITISH BIRDS. 
LANIUS EXCUBITOR. 
GREAT GREY SHRIKE. 
(Pirate 11.) 
Lanius cinereus, Briss. Orn, ii. p. 141 (1760). 
Lanius excubitor, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 135 (1766); et auctorum plurimorum— 
Latham, Gmelin, Naumann, Temminck, Bonaparte, Degland, Gerbe, Newton, 
Dresser, &e. 
Collyrio excubitor (Linn.), Gray, Hand-l. B.i. p. 390 (1869). 
The Great Grey Shrike is a regular though somewhat rare autumn and 
winter visitant to the British Islands. Although it has been observed 
during summer, there is no reliable evidence to prove that it has ever 
reared its young in this country; and it has also been repeatedly confused 
with Pallas’s Grey Shrike, and even with the much commoner Red-backed 
Shrike. In Scotland it is of occasional occurrence, more frequent in the 
eastern and midland counties than in the western; but it has never been 
observed in the Hebrides. It is an occasional winter visitant to the Ork- 
neys ; and a ‘‘ Grey Shrike” was once observed by Saxby at Balta Sound 
in the Shetlands. It has been obtained several times in Ireland; and 
Professor Newton states that a specimen was observed by Mr. J. Pell, the 
falconer, in Iceland. 
The Great Grey Shrike breeds in the north of France, Belgium, Holland, 
Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Scandinavia (up to about lat. 70°), and 
North Russia. In all these countries south of the Baltic it is found 
throughout the year; but the birds breeding north of the Baltic migrate 
southwards in winter, at which season they are found in every part of 
South Europe. On the Ural Mountains its range joins that of Pallas’s 
Grey Shrike (Z. major); and in South Russia, in the valley of the Volga, its 
range coalesces with that of another Siberian species, L. Jewcopterus, with 
both of which the present species interbreeds. It is, however, a very inter- 
esting fact that in Siberia, where these two latter species occur, they seem 
to have become so widely differentiated as to have ceased to interbreed, 
although both of them do so with the intermediate form L. excubitor. 
The evidence that the birds of Central Europe are resident, and that 
they do not migrate southwards in winter, leaving their places to be taken 
by birds from North Europe, is to be found in the fact that the examples 
which cross the Bosphorus on migration consist of ZL. excubitor and L.major, 
and of intermediate forms between them, whereas L. leucopterus and the 
intermediate forms between it and L. excubitor, which are so common in 
the valley of the Volga, do not appear to wander into Asia Minor. Besides 
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