PASSERINE, 231 



FAMILY I. 



DENTIROSTRES. 



In this family the bill is notched on the sides of the point. It is in this 

 family that we find the greatest number of insectivorous birds, though 

 almost all of them likewise feed on berries and other soft fruits. 



The genera are determined by the general form of the bill, which is 

 strong and compressed in Lanius and in Turdus, depressed in Muscicapa, 

 round and thick in Tanagra, slender and pointed in Motacilla; but the 

 transition from one of these forms to the other is so gradual, that it is an 

 extremely difficult matter to fix the limits of the genera. 



Lanius, Lin. 

 The bill conical or compressed, and more or less hooked at the point. 



Lanius, properly so called. 



The true Shrikes have a bill triangular at base, and compressed on the 

 sides. 



Shrikes live in families, and fly irregularly and precipitately, uttering 

 shrill cries ; they build on trees with great neatness, lay five or six eggs, 

 and take great care of their young. They have a habit of instantly imi- 

 tating a part of the songs of such birds as live in their vicinity. The 

 under part of the females, and of the young, is marked with fine trans- 

 verse lines. 



Some of them have the upper mandible arcuated; tho^e in which its 

 point is strong and much curved, and in which the notch forms a small 

 tooth on its sides, are so courageous and cruel, that many naturalists have 

 thereby been induced to place them among the birds of prey. In fact, 

 they pursue small birds, and successfully defend themselves against the 

 larger ones, even attacking the latter when it is necessary to remove them 

 from their nests*. 



There are four or five species of this subdivision in France. 



Lanius excubitor, L. ; Enl. 445 ; Naum. 49. (The Great Butcher 



Bird, or Shrike). As large as a Thrush ; ash coloured above ; white 



beneath ; wings, tail, and a band round the eye, black ; some white 



on the scapulars, the base of the wing-quills, and on the external 



edge of the lateral quills of the tail. It remains in France the whole 



year. 



In the south ©f Europe there is a race, or perhaps a species, of a 



deeper colour, with a vinous tint underneath — Lan. meridionalis, Temm. 



There are others in America still more closely allied to it-j-. 



* It is from this first subdivision that M. Vieillot has made his genus Lanius, 

 Gal. pi. cxxxv. 



f Lan. carolinensis, Wils. III. xxii. 5, and his Lan. excubitor, I. v. 1, which he 

 considers as the same. M. Ch. Bonaparte makes two species of them, and refers 



