360 NOTES ON THE 
and tail dark plumbeous, passing behind into dusky; tail 
tipped with yellow; primaries; except the first, margined with 
hoary; a short maxillary stripe, a narrow crescent on the 
infero-posterior quarter of the eye, white; secondaries with 
horny tips like red sealing wax. 
Length, 7.25; wing, 4.05; tail, 2.60. 
Habitat, North America generally. 
Family LANIIDZ2. 
LANIUS BOREALIS VieILuor. (621.) 
NORTHERN SHRIKE. 
This is by no means a very common visitor in migration, 
reaching Minnesota about the middle of October, and remain- 
ing variously in the latitude of Minneapolis from four to six 
weeks, but not very infrequently far into December. It occa- 
sionally remains during the entire winter in the lower or 
southern tier of counties, as has been reliably reported to me 
by Dr. Hvoslef. He has sent me the following data of its 
observation in his locality:—March 26th and December 31st, 
1883; December 7th, 1884; January 31st, 1885; February 3d, 
1886. 
Prof. C. L. Herrick found them ‘‘very common at Lake 
Shatek in October, 1877.” December 18th, 1870, and April 
5th, 1876, are the two extremes in my own records of 29 years. 
Mr. Washburn did not see this species in the northern part of 
the State. At the latest above date of my own observations, 
I saw one feeding upon a mouse which he fixed in the crotch 
of a tree upon which he perched. 
In hunting for mice it hovers in the same manner as the 
Sparrow Hawk does, but I have never seen it in the act of im- 
paling its victim on a thorn bush or a sliver projecting from a 
stub or fence rail, as I have seen the White-Rumped Shrike do 
many times. 
They have all gone further north before the 1st of May, so 
far as I have been able to learn. They have become less and 
less observed in the settled sections of the State from year to 
year of late, as with several other species which were formerly 
common. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Above, light bluish-ash, obscurely soiled with reddish-brown; 
sides of the crown, scapulars, and upper tail coverts, hoary 
white; beneath white; the breast with traverse lines; wings 
