Our excursions on the moors are nearly concluded. We are 

 on the point of setting out on our return journey, tired of the 

 boggy hollows, the willow-scrubs, or the interminable tracts 

 covered with loose stones ; but retaining the impression of a re- 

 markable, and in many respects grand, nature. A peculiarly harsh 

 bird-cry rings about us from a group of birch-trees, which grow 

 here and there on the flat lichen-covered terrace that forms the 

 last step before coming to the valley bottom. We soon see 

 that it proceeds from a pair of Great Grey Shrikes (Lanius 

 excubitor), who are apprehensive about their nest ; this lies large 

 and exposed in the top of the biggest of the birches, well-lined 

 with white Rype feathers, which at a long distance can be 

 seen protruding from the side of the nest an enticing sight for 

 an ornithologist. Here he will be able to obtain a contribution to- 

 wards the solution of a question which has often been propounded 

 which race of this species of bird it is which inhabits arctic 

 Europe, whether it is the "single-spotted" form, whose wing only 

 has one large white spot by the root of the quill feathers ("L. 

 major"), or the typical one, which, besides this spot on the 

 primaries, has also a large white spot by the root of the second- 

 aries, and therefore may be called the " Two-spotted." Both 

 are found indiscriminately during the migration seasons and in 

 winter, in nearly all other parts of Europe, and several naturalists 

 have therefore believed that the single-spotted and somewhat 

 darker " Lanius major " was a really arctic species, which had its 

 home in northern Europe and northern Asia, where the typical 

 Lanius excubitor would not be found. 



Within five minutes both examples lie in our hand ; but the 

 solution of the question is apparently just as far off as before. 

 For the fact is, the male proves to be a typical L. excubitor, the 

 female an equally strongly-marked "L. major," and the young in 

 the nest are too small to afford any evidence. 



We learn hence, however, this much, that both forms are 

 only varieties, which may occur indiscriminately in these 

 northern regions ; but they are not good species, since they pair 

 with each other (which two distinct species normally never do). 

 The typical European form is unquestionably the two spotted 

 L. excubitor ; but it has a strong tendency to variation in the dis- 



