10 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
of the autumn and winter shootings. Mr. Lewis, the Principal of 
ihe Spurn Lighthouse, says he has never known them strike the 
glass like other birds, but during the period of migration they will 
fly round and round the lantern, apparently not incommoded by 
the blaze of light, and take off small birds that are fluttering and 
beating themselves to death against the glass. They arrived off 
Flamborough in flocks of from ten to twenty. The Principal has 
never known them strike the glass, but has twice observed them 
perched on the gallery rail on the outside of the lantern. North of 
Flamborough they appear to have been equally numerous along 
the coast. Ona rock close to the Hartlepool Lighthouse a fisherman 
early one morning in October saw eleven or more sitting together. 
In a letter lately received from Heligoland, Mr. Gitke says :— 
“The Shorteared Owls pick off the poor birds when they are 
dazzled by the glare of the lighthouse, but not those fluttering 
against the glass; but Thrushes on the wing—constantly one 
hears their dying cries when clutched by the nude talons of an 
Owl that had just flitted, like a phantom, noiselessly past the light.” 
A friend writing from the Durham coast (November 28rd) says, 
“During the last bad weather our shores were thickly visited by 
the Woodcock or Shorteared Owl; there have not been so many for 
some years.” 
Great Gray Shrike.—Mr. Boyes informs me by letter that he 
saw this bird at Spurn on the 28rd of October. Early in the 
morning of the 24th he saw another sitting on a hedge-top near 
Kilnsea: this he shot; it proved an immature male. Later in the 
day he saw another at Spurn, which seemed a fine old bird: Mr, 
Boyes shot this also, but did not recover it, as it managed to con- 
ceal itself amongst the long grass. Mr. Boyes mentions ten others 
shot a day or two previously to his visit. Mr. Lewis also shot one 
about the same time; but this bird also, like the one Mr. Boyes 
shot, succeeded in concealing itself in the long sea-grass. In ‘ The 
Field’ for November 18th a bird of this species is recorded as shot 
at Sproatley, Holderness, during the first week in November. The 
Great Gray Shrike may be considered a very regular immigrant to 
our Holderness and North Lincolnshire coast at this season. In 
the Lincolnshire marshes it is common enough to have a local 
name, “ Mutterer,’ a name I conclude given from its note, which, 
as I have heard it, resembles the knocking of two pebbles 
together. 
