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GREAT GREY SHRIKE. 601 
pecker, very undulating. It was probably very tired; for an hour or two 
afterwards a boy brought it up to our room, and was delighted to receive 
fourpence for it. Several more arrived later, 
In ornithology there seem to be very few rules without exceptions. 
Almost all resident birds are early breeders. Many of them pair for life ; 
and it is only natural to suppose that birds which are hardy enough to 
brave a Dutch winter will begin to breed as soon as the April sunshine 
and the April flowers announce the return of spring. The Great Grey 
Shrike appears to be an exception to this rule. When I went to Valcons- 
waard to study the habits of some of the rare or accidental visitors to our 
islands at their breeding-grounds, the eggs of the Great Grey Shrike were 
one of the objects of my special care ; but though there were three of us (I 
was accompanied by my friends Mr. C. Bygrave Wharton and Mr. H. M. 
Labouchere), and though we had every boy in the village engaged in our 
service, it was not until the 19th of May that we took a nest containing 
four eggs. We had taken eggs of nearly all the common birds, even of 
such migrants as the Sedge-Warbler, Cuckoo, Nightingale, and Blue- 
throat, before the Great Grey Shrike’s nest was discovered, within a couple 
of feet of the top of a slender Scotch-fir, about eighteen feet from the 
ground, in the middle of a pine-wood. On the 2lst another nest was 
brought to us, containing’five eggs. On the 27th one of our best pioneers, 
a Dutch lad of perhaps fourteen, came in to announce to us that he had 
found the nest of a klapekster, the local name of the Great Grey Shrike. 
Tt was a dismal, rainy day ; but we soon put on our waterproofs, and a long 
walk brought us to an open space ina small wood. The nest was in the 
fork of an oak-tree about thirty feet from the ground. The bird was on, : 
but flew off as the boy was ascending the tree, and began to fly anxiously 
about. Sometimes it settled in a tree, often on the topmost branch ; and 
once it hovered in the air, with its body almost perpendicular, opposite the 
nest, which contained only two fresh eggs. The nest of the Great Grey 
Shrike is a somewhat bulky structure, as large as that of a Blackbird. 
Outside it is composed of slender twigs, dry grass, a few leaves, and a little 
moss, and is lined with roots, wool, hair, and feathers. The number of 
eges varies from five to seven. They are buffish or greenish white in 
ground-colour, blotched and spotted with olive-brown of different shades, 
and with underlying markings of violet-grey. Usually most of the spots 
are on the large end of the egg, where many of them are confluent. 
Sometimes they form an irregular zone, and are generally somewhat ill- 
defined. The eggs of this Shrike do not differ very much; and the red 
type of egg, found in those of L. collurio and L. rufus, appears never to 
oceur. They vary in length from 1+] to 1:0 inch, and in breadth from *8 
to ‘75 inch. . 
The Great Grey Shrike has the general colour of the upper parts clear 
