THE CORSICAN WOODCHAT SHRIKE. 271 



oak, etc.) as a rule and seldom less than 10 -ft. from ground but 

 occasionally also in bushes and young trees. Nest. Substantially 

 built of roots and branches of various flowering weeds, especially 

 cudweed (Gnaphalium). Cup neat and deep, lined finer materials, 

 bits of wool, hair or feathers. Eggs. Usually 5 to 6, occasionally 7, 

 with pale greenish ground and markings of greyish-brown with ashy 

 shell-marks, generally forming a zone at big end. Occasionally sets 

 with brownish-yellow or creamy ground are met with, and a rare 

 erythristic type has a salmon-pink or warm-cream ground with 

 red-brown markings. Average of 100 eggs, 22.8x16.9. Breeding- 

 season. From late April onward in Spain, but usually in May and 

 generally towards end of month' in central Europe. Incubation. 

 About 14-15 days. One brood. 



FOOD. Small birds (Swallows, Finches and Warblers) and their 

 young or eggs ; insects (coleoptera, lepidoptera, orthoptera, hymen- 

 optera, etc.) and their larvae ; also worms. 



DISTRIBUTION. England. Some forty at intervals, mostly in 

 south, and east as far north as Norfolk ; very rarely elsewhere. 

 Occurrences all between spring and autumn, largest number May 

 and June. Not recorded from : Lines., Rutland, Hunts., Beds., 

 Bucks., Gloucester, Salop, Staffs., Leicester, Warwick, and Middle- 

 sex, nor from Wales. Said to have twice nested Isle of Wight. 

 Scotland. One Isle of May (Forth), Oct. 19, 1911 ; one Auskerry 

 (Orkneys), June 6, 1913 ; one Fair Isle (Shetlands), June 4, 1913. 

 Ireland. One Blackwater Lightship (Wexford), Aug. 16, 1893 ; 

 one Tuskar Rock Light (Wexford), May 26, 1917. 



DISTRIBUTION. Abroad. North-west Africa and Mediterranean 

 countries generally, north to north Germany, Holland, and Belgium, 

 east to south Russia, Caucasus, and Asia Minor. Migrant, south in 

 winter to Sahara, Senegambia and Nigeria. Rare Canaries, casual 

 Madeira. Replaced in Corsica and Sardinia, Persia and Palestine, 

 by closely allied forms. 



114. Lanius senator badius Hartl. THE CORSICAN WOOD- 

 CHAT SHRIKE. 



LANIUS BADIUS Hartlaub, Journ. f. Orn., 1854, p. 100 (Gold Coast). 

 Lanius senator badius Hartl., C. B. Ticehurst, Bull. B.O.C., xxv, p. 76 ; 

 id., Brit. B., in, p. 369. 



DESCRIPTION. Adult male and female. -Like L. s. senator but 

 outer five or six primaries without white at base and rest of primaries 

 with only a little creamy-white at base ; white of rump more 

 restricted, more of the upper tail-coverts being brownish-grey ; 

 less white at base of tail-feathers ; chestnut of crown and nape 'in 

 fresh plumage darker. Moults as in L. s. senator. 

 Nestling. (Not examined.) 



