Wood Shrikes 735 



subfamily of the Laniida and are still so considered by some authorities, as all 

 have the hooked bill of the Shrikes. They are for the most part rather dull 

 colored birds, with much of brown, gray, black and white, sometimes relieved, 

 however, by chestnut, fawn-color, or yellowish. They mostly frequent trees 

 and bushes, and while they may feed to a limited extent on fruits, mollusks, etc., 

 they are mainly insectivorous, certain forms, such as the Indian Pied Shrikes 

 (Hemipus), catching their prey entirely in the air, like the Flycatchers, which 

 they otherwise resemble, while others search the leaves of trees, or hop easily 

 over the ground. One of the most anomalous but most interesting forms is the 

 so-called Magpie-Lark (Grallina picata) of Australia. It is a large bird, that is 

 for the group, being ten or eleven inches long, the male being the longer. It is 

 blue-black above, with the wing-coverts, a wing-band, and the rump, upper tail- 

 coverts and tail pure white, the latter tipped with black, while the sides of the 

 head and neck are striped with white and black, and the cheeks, throat, and breast 

 like the back, the remainder of the lower surface being pure white; the female 

 is similar to the male, but has the frontal band and throat white. The Magpie- 

 Lark is an attractive, tame, and familiar bird, very generally distributed through- 

 out the island continent, especially in the vicinity of fresh water, such as the banks 

 and muddy flats of lakes and swamps. It comes familiarly about the settlers' 

 homes, where it may be seen running along the verandas and house-tops, and 

 is considered one of the most useful birds, not only destroying great quantities 

 of insects such as grasshoppers and beetles, but numbers of a species of land 

 mollusk that is the intermediate host of the disease of sheep known as fluke. 

 Its flight is peculiar, being performed in a straight line but with numerous heavy 

 flappings of the wings; its note is a shrill, oft-repeated whining whistle. The 

 nidification is remarkable and quite at variance with the habits of other mem- 

 bers of the family or of Shrikes in general. They construct a large bowl-shaped 

 nest of mud, which "soon becoming hard and solid upon exposure to the atmos- 

 phere has precisely the appearance of a massive clay-colored earthenware 

 vessel," its outside dimensions being five or six inches and the egg cavity four 

 and a half or five inches across and two and a half deep ; it is sparingly lined with 

 feathers and grasses. The nest is placed usually on a bare horizontal limb of a 

 tree, often in an exposed situation and frequently overhanging water, and it is 

 not an uncommon sight to see several in the same tree which have been used in 

 successive seasons or for different broods. The old nests are frequently made 

 use of by other birds such as Wood Swallows, Cuckoo-Shrikes, etc. The eggs, 

 usually three or four in number, are pearly white, pinkish, or buffy red with 

 markings of purplish generally zoned about the apex. 



Pied Shrikes and Allies. Without going extensively into the subject, a few 

 selected from various parts of the group may serve to convey a fair impression 

 of the family. Thus the Pied Shrikes (Hemipus}, of which there are four species 

 ranging from the Himalayas through the Indian and Malay peninsulas to Java 

 and Borneo, are birds about five and a half inches long, with a mixed plumage of 

 black or brown and white. They are generally to be observed perched on the 

 summit of tall trees, whence they launch forth for their insect prey. Their nests, 



