62 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



in the act of carrying a skylark in its feet, which it had 

 flown about with for some time previous to my shooting 

 it. The lark was hardly half an ounce lighter than the 

 shrike." In confinement this species is very amusing, 

 darting from perch to perch with amazing rapidity, 

 and soon becomes tame enough to take its prey from 

 the hand, but is not generally long-lived. A male, shot 

 at Eollesby, near Yarmouth, on the 26th of October, 

 1864, was found to have the remains of a small bird, 

 wasps, and the imago of Vanessa urticce in its stomach, 

 the latter readily identified by the wings, which had 

 been swallowed with the body of the insect. I have 

 examined at different times two or three old females, 

 which showed no trace of the usual semi-lunar markings 

 on the breast, and were distinguishable, therefore, only 

 by dissection, from adult males. 



LANIUS COLLURIO, Linnaeus. 

 BED-BACKED SHKIKE. 



A constant summer visitant, though not in large 

 numbers, and regularly breeds in the county, but is 

 at the same time local in its distribution. To its car- 

 nivorous and insectivorous tastes, its thorny larder 

 abundantly testifies, and Messrs. Gurney and Fisher, 

 speaking of a brood of young red-backed shrikes having 

 been fed by the old birds in a cage, purposely hung 

 near the spot whence the nest had been taken, remark, 

 " Among the remains of the food which was brought 

 to the cage, we noticed the skulls of small birds, and 

 parts of some insects apparently humble bees." This 

 species, like the great grey shrike, has also been known to 

 attack the call-birds of bird-catchers in the most deter- 

 mined manner. An instance of this, which came under 



