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to its prey not only by sight, but also by the sense of hearing. I have seen him hunt by ear 
after a young Lark neglected by its parents, crouched in the grass calling for food, or a young 
Goldfinch sitting chirping on the ground; and he is well acquainted with the difference in the 
call-note of young and old birds. ‘The note of the Great Grey Shrike is harsh. Naumann (Joc. 
cit.) very correctly describes it as follows :— 
“©<Tts cry is schdch schach, and the call-note truii. On bright winter days, and particularly 
in spring, it may be heard uttering a sort of song composed of low notes mixed with its call-note; 
and it often also mixes with its song the notes of small birds. Both male and female sing, and 
they often call like the Skylark.’ 
“‘Tts nest is generally placed at some height on a tree or large thorn bush, and is somewhat 
bulky and loose-looking, though the inside is carefully finished. The foundation and outside are 
composed of dry sticks and twigs, straws and moss; and it is lined with wool and hair.” 
Mr. Keulemans, our artist, gives us the following notes on the habits of this Shrike in 
Holland :— 
“The Great Grey Shrike affects wooded localities. It is very shy during the summer, and 
therefore but rarely seen. A careful observer may, however, see them now and then even in 
places of public resort, but always high up in the trees. 
“In Holland it has many local names. It is generally called Garden Magpie, or Chattering 
Magpie, Butcher, Clawbird, Thornsticker, Murderer, Sentinel, Garotter, &c. 
“In the autumn it is often caught by birdcatchers, as it attacks their decoy birds. When they 
have captured one, the birdcatchers pluck out a tail-feather, which they pass through its nostrils, 
and cutting a slit in each end they put other feathers into each of these, after which the Shrike 
is liberated. ‘This proceeding the birdcatchers call ‘ milling ;’ and when a Shrike thus treated is 
flying away it repeatedly tumbles over, which is called the ‘ mill.’ All other birds obnoxious to 
the birdcatchers are similarly treated when they fall into their hands.” 
We have a series of these eggs before us from Dresser’s collection, taken near Valkensvaard, 
in Holland, near Coblentz on the Rhine, and in Styria, which do not vary much, except in size. 
They measure from 1 inch by # inch to 13% inch by 32 inch, and are dirty white, covered with 
faint purplish underlying shell-markings, and dull brown overlying surface-blotches, which in 
some are collected towards the larger end. 
According to Naumann the term of incubation is fifteen days, and the young are fed by the 
parents with insects until they are so fully grown as hardly to be distinguishable from their 
parents. He also states that they sometimes raise two broods in the year. 
Mr. Wheelwright (‘Spring and Summer in Lapland,’ p. 271) thus describes its nesting in 
Quickjock, in Lapland :-— 
« Lanius excubitor was by no means common, and, though we shot five or six young birds 
when the season was over, we only obtained one nest, containing five eggs; this was on May 13th. 
We shot the old female. ‘The nest was placed on a small fir, not high from the ground. It was 
one of the warmest and most comfortable nests I have ever seen, large and deep, built out- 
wardly of dead fir branches, and lined with a very thick layer of pure white feathers of the 
Willow Grouse.” 
In the times when falconry was in yogue, and even now in some parts of the Continent, the 
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