24 BIRDS OF MIDDLESEX. 



Redbacked Shrike, Lanius collurio. A common 

 summer visitant, usually arriving about the first 

 week in May, and remaining until tlie end of August. 

 After the young are hatched and able to fly, they 

 keep together in families until the time comes for 

 them to leave us. I have counted as many as seven 

 together in a hedge-row in August. On examining 

 the contents of the stomach of some specimens killed 

 early in August, I found only the remains of beetles 

 and chafers ; no trace of any small bird, nor flesh of 

 any sort. This bird has not been numerous here of 

 late years. Perhaps this is owing to the prevailing 

 habit of " plashing," * or " laying " the hedges, for 

 the Butcher-bird delights in a tall tangled hedge. 



Family Muscicapid^. 



Spotted Flycatcher, Muscicapa grisola. A re- 

 gular summer visitant, in some years very numerous, 



* En passant, the word " plash " was, perhaps, originally 

 written " pleach," meaning a fold or twist. In Shakespeare's 

 play of Henry V., we read of France that — 



" . . , all her husbandry doth lie in heaps, 

 Corrupting in its own fertiUty ; 

 Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, 

 Unpruned dies ; her hedges even pleadid, 

 Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair, 

 Put forth disordered twigs.'' — Act v., Sc. 2. 



This description well applies to a modern plash'd hedge. 



