844 SHRIKE 
been mentioned by the ancients. Sundevall, however, considers 
that the Malacocraneus of Aristotle was one of them, as indeed 
Turner had before suggested, though repelling the latter’s supposi- 
tion that Aristotle’s Tyrannus was another, as well as Belon’s 
reference of Collyrion. 
The species designated Shrike by Turner is the Lanius excubitor 
of Linneeus and nearly all succeeding authors, nowadays! commonly 
known as the Greater Butcher-bird, Ash-coloured or Great Grey 
Shrike,—a bird which visits the British Islands pretty regularly, 
though not numerously, in autumn or winter, occasionally prolong- 
ing its stay into the next summer; but it has rarely if ever been 
ascertained to breed here, though often asserted to have done so. 
This is the more remarkable since it breeds more or less commonly 
on the Continent from the north of France to within the Arctic Circle. 
Exceeding a Song-Thrush in linear measurements, it is a much less 
bulky bird, of a pearly-grey above with a well-defined black band 
passing from the forehead to the ear-coverts ; beneath it is nearly 
white, or—and this is particularly observable in Eastern examples 
—hbarred with dusky. The quill-feathers of the wings, and of the 
elongated tail, are variegated with black and white, but are mostly 
of the former, though what there is of the latter shews very con- 
spicuously, especially at the base of the remiges, where it forms 
either a single or a double patch.?, Much smaller than this is the 
1 According to Charleton, Willughby and Ray, it was in their day called in 
many parts of England ‘‘ Wierangle” (Germ. Wiirgengel and Wiirger, the 
Strangler) ; but it is hard to see how a bird which few people in England could 
know by sight should have a popular name, and Chaucer’s use of it in his 
Assemblye of Foules may be ascribed to his fondness for outlandish words. 
? On this character great store has been laid by some recent writers, who 
maintain that the birds presenting only a single patch, with some other minor 
distinctions, as the barred breast above mentioned, come from the far East and 
deserve specific recognition as the Lanius major of Pallas. But it is admitted 
that every intermediate form occurs, and Prof. Collett has now shewn (Jdis, 
1886, pp. 30-40) that the typical Z. excwbitor and typical LZ. major may be found 
in one and the same brood, and also that this occasional divergence is duc neither 
to age nor sex. That it does depend to some extent on locality is allowed ; for, 
though examples with the single patch (Z. major) occasionally reach Great 
Britain, it is asserted that nearly all the specimens from Eastern Siberia are so 
marked. But it is also found that by almost insensible degrees other (and some- 
times more important) distinctions are manifested, and the extreme terms of the 
several series have been exalted to the rank of ‘‘ species ””—or at least local races. 
These are too many to be here enumerated, but it may be mentioned that the 
Great Grey Shrike of North America, which ordinarily has the lower plumage 
strongly barred, and is usually known as JZ. borealis, seems to be only one of 
these divergent forms, though perhaps the most divergent, as might be expected 
from the wholly distinct area it occupies. Yet occasionally examples occur in the 
Old World, which there is no reason to suppose have an American origin, indis- 
tinguishable from the typical Z. borealis, and an uninterrupted series from one 
