240 THE RED-BACKED SHRIKE. 



The Red-Backed Shrike. 



(Lanius Collurio.) Linn. 



Although this bird does not visit Fife, it is pretty common 

 about London and Bristol and the Southern Counties of 

 England, especially on the extensive downs of Sussex. Like 

 the fly-catchers, it is a regular summer visitor — arrives in 

 spring, breeds and leaves in autumn. In habits it is similar to 

 the preceding. The nest, which is bulky and slovenly put 

 together, is composed of twigs, roots, aud moss, lined with 

 wool and hair. It is fully 6 inches over all, and about 3 inches 

 in diameter inside. It lays five or six eggs, pinkish-white, 

 with brownish spots in zones, chiefly at the larger end, and are 

 amongst the most beautiful of our British birds' eggs. It breeds 

 in thorn bushes or furze, sometimes 10 or 12 feet up in a thorn 

 tree. It frequents the margins of woods, thickets, tall hedges, 

 and furze-covered downs. Its food is chiefty insects of the 

 coleopterous order, which it transfixes upon thorns, eating the 

 soft parts and leaving the thorax ; but it has been seen to feed 

 on small birds. It also perches on the top of a twig and 

 watches for its prey. Its ordinary note is a sparrow-like chirp, 

 but it has a pleasing little song. The cuckoo sometimes lays in 

 the nest of this bird, and a pair of them have been seen feeding 

 a young cuckoo perched upon an oak. When hovering above 

 a cockchafer it is like a miniature kestrel falcon. Like the 

 preceding, it is often mobbed by small birds, although their 

 nests have been found close together, where the small birds 

 reared their young with impunity ; but such are the anomalies 

 of Nature. It is about the size of a corn bunting, for 

 which it might be taken. It is 7J inches to end of tail, 

 and 12 J inches in extent of wings. The colour of the head 

 and nape of the neck is ash grey ; throat, white ; breast, 

 belly, and sides, rose-red ; back and wing-coverts, reddish- 

 brown ; the middle feathers of the tail black ; the rest white at 

 the base ; legs and feet, black ; irides, chestnut. It has also 

 the distinctive black patch on the side of the head. The 

 female at first differs from the male in having the cheeks, 

 breast, and sides transversly barred with brown lines, and 

 having the head and all the upper parts of the plumage 

 chestnut, but in time becomes the same as the male. 



