22 BIRDS OF MIDDLESEX. 



poulterer's shop in London." * But this may have 

 come from Holland. I have frequently seen Owls and 

 Hawks of different species in Leadenhall Market, 

 which had been sent from Holland with the wild 

 fowl. 



ORDER INSESSOEES. Family LANIAD.E. 



GREAT GREY SHRIKE, Lanius excubitor. A winter 

 visitant of rare occurrence. 



Mr. Edward Newman, in a letter to me dated 

 10th January, 1863, made the following remark with 

 regard to this bird, which I have thought of sufficient 

 interest to quote here. He says : " It visits England 

 regularly but rarely every winter, but very seldom 

 in the summer. I have taken great pains to collect 

 the occurrence of this bird in England. It passes 

 southwards and northwards exactly at the same time 

 as Collurio, but does not travel the same journey; 

 so that Excubitor may be passing from the Orkneys 

 to the Thames exactly at the same moment that 

 Collurio is passing from the Thames to the Mediter- 

 ranean." 



In the "Zoological Journal" for April, 1825, p. 26, 

 Mr. Yarrell says that, in January of that year, " a 

 Great Grey Shrike was taken in a clap-net near 



* Yarrell's ' British Birds,' vol. i., p. 163. 



