Wood Lark and Shrikes 237 



seem to be but a poor reward for the amount of hammering 

 it must require to extract them. A more profitable task, at 

 which one was observed to be engaged, was in digging 

 wood-lice from the coping of a garden wall ; another was 

 vigorously extracting the seeds from the cone of a spruce 

 fir. The Nuthatch was known here, I was informed, as 

 Delor-y-cnau. 



Another bird seen here, which was unknown in the Dee 

 valley, was the Wood Lark ; but as only a single individual 

 was noticed its mate would no doubt be sitting it is 

 probably not common. The bird, when I first saw it, was 

 dusting itself on the road, it then perched on a telegraph- 

 wire, and finally flew circling off to a small wood, uttering 

 its never-to-be-mistaken and sweet, if somewhat monotonous, 

 song. As the local distribution of this species is still but 

 imperfectly worked out, it may be added that this was near 

 Cemmes, in Montgomeryshire. The Welsh name of the 

 Wood Lark, Hedydd-y-coed^ is known to many people, even at 

 Llanuwchllyn, where the real Wood Lark is never seen, 

 being applied to the Tree Pipit, just as that bird is so often 

 called the Wood Lark in many parts of both England and 

 Scotland, where the true Alauda arborea is practically un- 

 known, as witness Burns's lines 



cc Oh, stay, sweet warbling wood lark, stay, 

 Nor fear to quit thy trembling spray " 



which without doubt refer to the Tree Pipit. 



The Red-backed Shrike was more abundant here than in 

 the Dee valley, three or four nests, each containing young, 

 being noticed in the roadside hedges, the cock carrying off 

 the droppings of the young from one of them. With these 

 he invariably flew to the telegraph-wire overhead, and, having 

 dropped them on to the road, cleaned his bill by wiping it 

 upon the wire. I noticed him twice pounce upon one of 

 the handsome and lively Tiger Beetles (Cicindela campestris) 

 which were running about upon a sunny bank. For so 

 small and harmless looking a bird, this species is peculiarly 

 given to demonstrating its claims to be regarded as a bird-of- 

 prey. Near Llanuwchllyn, one day, I saw one pursuing a 



