370 BRITISH BIRDS. 



the patches of cistus-scrub. Here two or three pairs may be 

 found nesting within a few hundred yards of one another, 

 but as a rule each pair has its own district, which it keeps 

 to itself. The best time for full clutches of eggs is about the 

 fourth week in May, but early nests may occasionally be met 

 with as early as May 12th — 13th. It is difficult to lay down 

 general rules as to nesting-sites, for they show a wide range 

 of variation. Perhaps the first nest found may be about 

 15 feet up in a lichen-covered cork-oak, built to fit right on to 

 a horizontal bough, and not at all conspicuous from below. 

 The next may prove to be in a thick clump of brambles about 

 five feet from the ground, and not to be reached without sundry 

 scratches, while a third is placed far out among the pendant 

 outer branches on some spreading olive-tree, some eight feet 

 high, and a fourth is built among the slender boughs of a 

 sapling ilex, protected by a mass of creepers at its base. The 

 typical clutch consists of six eggs, but sometimes five only are 

 found and occasionally seven are met with. As a rule, they do 

 not vary much in type, but are boldly marked with a zone of 

 leaden shell-markings and a few darker olive-brown spots, on 

 a pale blue, bluish-grey, or more rarely olive-grey ground. 

 There is, however, one extremely handsome type which has 

 been met with on three occasions at least, in which the ground- 

 colour is a warm salmon-pink and the markings are violet- 

 grey and rich sienna-brown. Whitehead found one clutch 

 of this character out of about twenty examined, and I was 

 fortunate to obtain two in 1908 — 9. The only other Shrike 

 which breeds in Corsica is the Red-backed Shrike (L. collurio, 

 L.), and though eggs of the Corsican Woodchat might be 

 confused with some types of British Red-backed Shrikes, 

 they can hardly be mistaken for Corsican eggs of L. collurio, 

 which are much smaller than English eggs. Moreover the 

 nests of the two species are essentially different and can be 

 distinguished at a glance, for while L. senator badius builds 

 a big, substantial nest of twigs, lichens and flowering heads 

 of grasses, interwoven with roots and cudweed, lined with 

 fibres and some feathers, L. collurio in Corsica is content 

 to make a slighter and less compact edifice, generally placed 

 quite low down and composed chiefly of grasses and roots, 

 with a feather or two interwoven. On one occasion we met 

 with a particularly flimsy Woodchat's nest, so badly built 

 that one could see through the bottom of the nest, but this 

 was quite exceptional, and the characteristic materials showed 

 the ownership at once, even without the presence of the 

 watchful parent birds. F. C. R. Jourdain. 



