In North- West Canada. 141 



are rather shy birds, inhabiting woods and thickets, courting* 

 the seclusion of the thickest foliage. The black-billed cuckoo 

 has been obtained in Ireland, and the yellow-billed species has 

 been shot on several occasions in England. 



My next find was a nest and five eggs of the great grey 

 shrike. The nest was a large, bulky structure of twigs, the 

 inside made of roots and weeds. The eggs are like those of 

 the white-rumped shrike, with the exception of being a trifle 

 larger ; they are greenish grey, spotted and blotched with ob- 

 scure purple and light brown. The great northern shrike 

 breeds plentifully around Crescent Lake, Assiniboia. From 

 here I received a number of clutches last season. On compar- 

 ing a large series of eggs of the great northern shrike with 

 those of the white-rumped shrike, it is at once seen they are 

 larger in size, and the eggs of both species vary considerably 

 in colour and markings. The white-rumped shrike is com- 

 mon throughout Manitoba, where both species are known as 

 the meat birds, on account of their habit of impaling small 

 birds and insects on thorns and sharp twigs. They are cruel, 

 quarrelsome and rapacious, and are destructive to the smaller 

 birds, many of which they kill, simply eating out the brains 

 and leaving the bodies impaled on a twig to dry in the sun. 

 From this habit they are called butcher birds. 



The great grey shrike is found in Europe, and breeds at 

 Valkenswaard, in Holland, and I have a number of sets that 

 were collected in that country. It does not breed in the Brit- 

 ish Islands, being only an occasional visitor there. 



The white-rumped shrike breeds commonly in Ontario, and 

 its eggs have been taken near Toronto. 



A pair of Baltimore orioles were flying around, the male 

 bird piping away ; they were evidently nesting somewhere 

 along the banks of the stream. I startled a belted kingfisher 

 from a fallen branch of a tree overhanging the water, and it 

 flew away down stream. This bird is common in Ontario, 

 and frequents all the streams north of Toronto which empty 

 themselves into Lake Ontario. I have only twice taken the 

 trouble to dig down to its eggs. The first clutch of seven 



