A WOODLAND TRAGEDY 91 



via Sicily and Tunis, to the Nile Valley. Thence, 

 anticipating Mr. Cecil Rhodes and disregardful of 

 railways, they keep straight on, with glorious views 

 of sea and mountain, past the Mahdi's land, till 

 they arrive at the great lakes and British South 

 Africa. At least, that is the course pursued by the 

 greater number, though a few more original families 

 (mostly Russian by birth) trend eastward towards 

 the Persian Gulf, and winter, after the now fashion- 

 able manner, in India. 



During his absence in the south, our shrike 

 grows adult, and also puts on his fine spring 

 colours (which are his courtship suit, intended to 

 charm his prospective mate), just before his return 

 in May to England, or rather to Europe ; for of 

 course I do not mean to say that he necessarily 

 comes back to his native country ; though there is 

 reason to believe that most migratory birds do 

 really return year after year to the same quarters. 

 They have a summer residence, so to speak, in 

 France or England, and a winter one by the banks 

 of the Zambesi or the Indus. Most butcher-birds 

 that visit Europe in the spring come fairly far 

 north, nesting in Northern France, Southern Eng- 

 land, Belgium, Holland, or Germany. Few nest 

 on the Mediterranean, probably because the sum- 

 mer droughts in that arid tract are unfavourable 

 to their food-insects ; those that remain in Southern 

 Europe or Western Asia choose, as a rule, the 

 cooler and moister mountain regions, such as the 

 Balkans, the Greek hills, Armenia, and the Caucasus. 

 The English residents fly back from their African 



