Order Passeriformes, Family Laniidae, Genus GymnorMna. 9 



hiding places with the dusk. Lizards, mice, and large beetles 

 are always hammered on the ground or on a stone before being 

 swallowed. When searching for food on the ground they 

 always walk unless they are in a hurry, when they hop. They 

 also give two or three short hops before rising in flight. 



Flight — The flight is rather slow, but straight and power- 

 ful, with a strong, even, fairly fast wing movement, the swish 

 of the wings can be heard for a considerable distance. When 

 alighting on the ground they sail 20 or 30 yards close to the 

 ground, usually taking a sharp turn as they settle. When 

 alighting on a tree they fly along three or four feet below the 

 proposed perch, sailing upward till they practically stop before 

 settling. 



]sjest — This is usually placed in a fork near the top of a 

 tree (40 to 00 feet from*the ground), but in treeless country 

 they will build in bushes. A nest at St. Kilda was only about 

 three feet from the ground in the top of a boxthorn bush. The 

 nest is built outwardly of small dry twigs, and is lined with 

 strips of bark and grasses, with a final lining of wool, cow hair, 

 fur, or other soft material; near homesteads scraps of fencing 

 wire are often used in the foundation. About the end of May 

 the old birds drive off the last season's young birds, and repair 

 to the vicinity of last year's nests, each pair having a little 

 territory of its own, which it never leaves, and drives all others 

 from. The first pairs begin building about the end of June, 

 and by the beginning of August they are all building. The 

 eggs are three to five in number, the usual clutch being four; 

 they vary very much in colour and disposition of marking. A 

 common type has a ground colour of light bluish green, spotted 

 and streaked with bright red brown, but some clutches are 

 found to be light brown, spotted with darker brown; others 

 again have a pale blue ground, spotted with black, almost like 

 an English thrush's egg; some again are streaked all over with 

 fine hairlike lines, but the eggs of any individual bird do not 

 ^ary from year to year. Average measurement of 20 eggs: — 

 4.07 cm. x 2.90 cm. 



Largest egg, 4.35 cm. x 3.05 cm. 

 Smallest egg, 3.70 cm. x 2.70 cm. 



Incubation occupies about three weeks, and the young 

 leave the nest about three w T eeks later, returning to it for a 

 week or so to sleep, the mother sitting on them, after which 

 Ihey perch on the sides of the nest for a week or two before 



