Order, INSESSORES. 

 (Perching Birds.) 



THE GREAT GEEY SHRIKE. 

 Ash-coloured Butcher-bird. 



Lanius excubitor, Linn. 



Has occasionally been obtained in the autumn and 

 winter. 



Two of these birds came under the notice of Templeton ; one 

 shot in the county of Down, and sent to him by Rainey Maxwell 

 Esq., and the other, observed by himself in the county of Antrim, 

 about the beginning of the present century. Eour, obtained in 

 these counties, have come under my own observation. The first, 

 a bird in mature plumage, was shot at Echlinville, late in the 

 autumn, more than twenty years ago ; — the second, an adult male, 

 was killed at Beechmount, near Belfast, in November, 1824; 

 another individual was in company with it, and remained about 

 the place for a few weeks afterwards ; — in a neighbouring locality, 

 one, (perhaps the latter bird,) was shot during the few days 

 of frost which occurred at the end of January, 1835. A recent 

 adult male was shot on a thorn-hedge at Kilmore, county of Down, 

 on the 15th of January, 1845: in its crop was the greater portion 

 of a grey linnet, which was recognised by a few feathers that 

 remained. On the 16th of November, 1846, a recent bird of 

 this species, killed a few days before, came under my examina- 

 tion in Belfast. The contents of the stomach consisted entirely 



