596 BRITISH BIRDS. 



we are for the most part profoundly ignorant. In the case of the Grey 

 Shrikes, however, this would not appear to be the case ; for two examples 

 obtained by Hoffmann (one in lat. 63^ and the other in lat. 64|, on the 

 western slopes of the Ural Mountains) are identified by Bogdanow, than 

 whom a more competent judge could not be found, as L. excubitor (see 

 his excellent Monograph of the Russian Shrikes and their allies, p. 135). 



There are several examples of Pallas's Grey Shrike in the museum at 

 Edinburgh. Gray, in his ' Birds of the West of Scotland/ mentions 

 having seen at least two dozen examples of Scotch-killed Grey Shrikes 

 with only one wing-bar. In Mr. Borrer's collection are two examples 

 killed in Sussex. It has been shot near Cardiff ; my friend Mr. Back- 

 house has an example in his collection obtained near York ; and in the 

 British Museum is an example killed in this country. So far as is known, 

 all these examples have been obtained in autumn, winter, or early spring. 

 On the continent it has been found at Sarepta in March, in the Crimea in 

 December, in the Baltic Provinces at the end of August, near Stockholm 

 in autumn, near Bergen in October, besides many localities in Germany, 

 Austria, &c. 



Pallas's Grey Shrike breeds throughout Siberia south of lat. 65, where 

 it is a partial migrant, wintering in Turkestan. Examples from the 

 Tchuski Land, Kamtschatka, Vladivostok, Lake Baikal, Krasnoyarsk, and 

 Toorokansk appear to be thoroughbred; but many of the examples 

 obtained on Heligoland and near Constantinople on migration are 

 decidedly intermediate, and are probably the result of the interbreeding 

 of the Great Grey Shrike with Pallas's Grey Shrike somewhere in North- 

 eastern Europe. It is, however, possible that the birds breeding in North- 

 eastern Europe, or even in North-western Siberia, may be an intermediate 

 race; but two examples obtained by Finsch in the valley of the Obb 

 appear to be one a half-bred and the other a quadroon. In Turkestan 

 Pallas's Grey Shrike is represented by a near ally, Eversmanii's Grey 

 Shrike (Lanius mollis), and in North America by the Great Northern 

 Shrike (Lanius borealis). Both these forms are distinguished by never 

 losing the vermiculations on the underparts, which are only found in 

 immature examples of Pallas's Grey Shrike, and by having the colour of 

 the upper parts much darker and browner. In South-west Siberia, 

 extending eastwards to Lake Baikal and southwards into Turkestan, 

 another Grey Shrike, the White-winged Grey Shrike (Lanius leuco- 

 pterus], resides. Instead of having the white on the wing less 

 developed than in the Great Grey Shrike, it is much more so. This 

 is especially noticeable on the secondary quills, which have the basal 

 half of both webs and nearly the entire inner web pure white. The 

 range of the White-winged Grey Shrike overlaps that of Pallas's Grey 

 Shrike about the middle of the valley of the Yenesay; but the two 



