^°8q8^] Palmicr, Our Small Eastern SZ/iikes. 2 C "J 



ern parts of the range of //ligrans are the largest. The averages 

 include all the specimens measured, no weeding out of the immature 

 or smallest being done. The single measurements will show the 

 usual range of size in fully adult birds. 



Averages of hidoTiciauus. 



Of 24 males, wings, 3.77 ; tails, 3.89 ; culmens, .60 ; tarsi, r.07. 

 Of 13 females, wings, 3.69; tails, 3.79; culmens, .58; tarsi, 

 1.05. 



Averages of vii grans. 



Of 35 males, wings, 3.88; tails, 3.78; culmens, .54; tarsi, 1.07. 

 Of 24 females, wings, 3.78; tails, 3.66; culmens, .53; tarsi, 

 1.08. 



General Considerations. 



Shrikes are inhabitants of open, wooded, scrubby country. 

 The mixed praii-ie, savanna, open pine woods, and hummock 

 lands of the southern coasts afford a congenial habitat for the 

 Loggerhead, which is an abundant bird. Similar conditions but 

 with a greatly different vegetation, prevail about tfie prairies of 

 the middle States and the farms and open country of the summer 

 habitat of the Migrant Shrike. From the distribution here given 

 it will be noticed that there is a considerable hiatus ^ between the 

 breeding ranges of these two forms. This is evidently caused by 

 the fact that the interval between the 100-foot and the 500-foot 

 contours is a part of the great coastal plain forest region of the 

 south, a region unsuited to Shrikes, and in which they do not 

 breed. It is possible that, as civilization reached the prairies of 

 Indiana and Illinois, a passage eastward was afforded by which 

 these birds extended their range eastward into Maine and south- 



' See, Ragsdale, Auk, 1889, 224-226, though his facts were niLxed, no hiatus 

 really occurring between ttitgrans and exctibitoroides, but between the former 

 and liidovicianits. 



