OF SOME OF THE BIRDS MENTIONED 223 
—o ——a SS Steere 
Devours at once or stores up insects and small birds 
by impaling them on thorns, plucking the birds before 
eating them (butcher-bird). Notes: Call note, a low 
sharp chirp often repeated. Migratory: Arrives April, 
departs in September or October. Plumage: Male, 
Quaker-grey on head and upper part of back, lower 
back and wings chestnut brown (red-backed shrike), 
under parts rose-buff. (Female: rusty brown on 
upper part of body, greyish-white beneath without 
the grey patch on back.) Tail: Rounded at end, 
upper part white. Bill: Upper mandible hooked at 
the end; bristles at base of beak (as in other flesh- 
eating birds, e.g. carrion crow). Food: Large in- 
sects, mice, frogs, etc., and small birds. Nest: Re- 
sembles blackbird’s, but larger, substantial; in May 
or June, in a bush or hedge generally, rather high ; 
open, cup-shaped. Made of : Dried grass, twigs, roots, 
moss, etc., lined with fine roots, and stalks. Second 
nests: Only one yearly. Eggs: Pale reddish-white, 
spotted red-brown of different shades. Five or six. 
2. CHIFF CHAFF 
(Pages 139-143) 
Phylloscopus rufus, or Sylvia rufa (Phylloscopus and 
Sylvia. See willow-wren or warbler, and nightingale. 
Lat., Sylva, a wood; Rufus, Lat., red). Chiffchaft from 
