THE GREAT GREY-SHRIKE 



tor the soundness of this tbooij. Professor R Collett, in the Itn'-t for 

 1886, pp. 30-40, has shown by indisputable evidence that even in 

 (Vnd-al Kuropean birds the second bar is occasionally imperfect or 

 wanting, while in Scandinavia such cases are more common, and that 

 in the same brood typical specimens of both forms may frequently bo 

 found. It is therefore impossible to rogMfd this character as having 

 a geographical significance ; and Dr. Hartert's researches have shown 

 that the Kuropean bird, with either single or double wing-bar, ranges 

 east to the lower Ob, while the true Siberian form, a whiter bird, which 

 never shows the second bar, probably extends from Kaintschatka to 

 (ho Yenesei valley, and has never been recorded from the British 



Mrs. 



To see the great grey-shrike in England, the best way is to walk 

 along the coast of Holderness towards the Spurn after a rush of 

 migrants in October, or to wander along the Lincolnshire coast south 

 of the H umber, with its miles of interminable mud flats reaching as 

 far as the eye can see, though here it occurs less frequently. Yet 

 another likely spot is the North Norfolk coast a favourite landfall of 

 our autumn immigrants. But the grey-shrike is never really a 

 common bird even here. In the autumn of 1880 considerable numbers 

 reached our shores, and in October 1892 Messrs Hewetson and Clubley 

 saw no fewer than twenty birds in one day's walk between Kilnsea and 

 Spurn, and next day Mr. J. Cordeaux saw seven or eight ; but even 

 this is quite exceptional, and compares poorly with the "tens of 

 thousands " and " myriads " which one reads about in connection with 

 the commoner migrants. 



Mr. Cordeaux gives a vivid description of how, on 16th October 

 1892, every bush along the shore was filled with recently arrived small 

 birds, chiefly goldcrests. The shrikes were hard at work restoring 

 their energies by preying on their travelling companions. Each bird 

 worked independently. One was trying to circumvent a goldcrest 

 which had taken refuge in a blackthorn bush ; another was hovering, 

 kestrel-like, over a stubble field, often changing position from place 



