460 



PERCHING BIRDS. 



size they are as large as those of the blackbird, and chiefly composed of chickweed, 

 freshly plucked feathers, and wool. Some contained as many as six eggs, these beino- 

 bluish green in ground-colour, spotted and blotched with greenish brown. This 

 shrike feeds principally upon beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers, and other insects. 

 Its flight, like that of its congeners, is undulating, but easy and comparatively 

 noiseless ; the bird skimming through the air like a partridge for a moment or two 

 before it alights on some perch, on to which it drops with a scuffle of the wings. 

 The song is a not unmusical chatter, something like the twitter of the swallow or 



m 



- *- . ■ 



LESSER GREY SHRIKE (\ Lat. size). 



starling, but louder and mixed with some harsher notes. The bird has a variety of 

 notes, some very harsh, which are probably alarm notes, and others somewhat 

 plaintive. In the adult the forehead, lores, and ear-coverts are deep black ; the 

 crown of the head and all the upper-parts pearl-grey ; the wings black, the primaries 

 having white bases which form a single white wing-bar; the tail is black and 

 white ; and the under-parts are white tinged with reddish-buff. 



Red Backed The red-backed shrike (L. coUurio), which is represented in the 



Shrike. i ower figure £ tne iU us t ra tion on p. 458, is another migratory bird, 



spending many months of the year beneath the burning rays of an African sun, 



and returning northwards in the spring of the year in order to rear a fresh family 



in its haunts in Central Europe and the British Isles. Those individuals that 



