130 IN THE GREEN LEAF 



tony a little, some ragged-hipped cows, with 

 their bells ; a blue sky without a vestige of 

 cloud overhead ; and an air so hot, that you 

 can hear the seed-vessels of the furze pop 

 and snap all around you. There you will 

 see our friend perched on some bush close to 

 the main road, watching for lizards or beetles, 

 which delight to bask or to run about on its 

 heated surface. When on the wing, the tail 

 is kept straight out, so that it looks like one 

 feather, and is very similar to that of the long- 

 tailed tit. 



There are two rare shrikes which visit us just 

 sufficiently often to be classed as British birds. 

 One of them, intermediate in size between 

 those shrikes which I have described, is the 

 lesser grey -shrike. A pair of this species 

 visited my own immediate neighbourhood in 

 the latter part of June 1886, but they were 

 far too cautious to let any one get near them 

 to shoot ; and as the spot they pitched on for 

 a couple of days was a worked-out chalk-pit, 

 on private property, they did not come to 

 grief. 



The woodchat- shrike, which is similar in 

 size and build to the butcher-bird, may be 

 considered as one of the rarest of the shrike 



