178 



GREAT SHRIKE. 



GBEY SHEIKE. GREAT GEEY SHEIKE. 



ASn-COLOUBED SHEIKE. GEEATEE BUTCHER BIED. 



MTJEDEEING PIE. SHEIKE. SHEEEK. 



CIGYDD MAWE, OF THE ANCIENT BEITISH. 



Lanius excubitor, LINNAEUS. PENNANT. MONTAGU. BEWICK. 



Lanius A butcher. Excubitor A sentinel. 



THE uncertainty even of Swainson himself as to the dis- 

 tinctness of the supposed species he has described under the 

 name of 'Lanius excubitorides,' and the still farther uncertainty 

 as to whether that variety or species, if it either the one or 

 the other, has been met with in England, obliges me to omit 

 it from the 'British Birds.' 



The species before us is found in Denmark, Russia, Norway, 

 Sweden, Lapland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Holland, and 

 other countries of Europe, as also in all the temperate parts 

 of North America. In England specimens have been procured 

 in Yorkshire, (one on the 18th. of April, 1849;) Cumberland, 

 Northumberland, Durham, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, 

 Worcestershire, Dorsetshire Devonshire, Wiltshire, Sussex, 

 Surrey, Cheshire, Essex, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Bedfordshire, 

 Warwickshire, and Kent. 



In Ireland, in the counties of Down, Antrim, Sligo, 

 Londonderry, Westmeath, Dublin, Tipperary, Waterford, Cork, 

 and the Queen's County. A few have been met with in Scotland. 



In the Orkney and Shetland Islands it has hitherto been 

 'non inventus.' 



This species is sufficiently scarce in this country to make 

 it a valuable addition to a collection; and at the same time 

 not so extremely rare as to render its acquisition almost hopeless. 



