410 
4 
Von Nordmann, in Demidoff’s ‘ Voyage dans la Russie méridionale,’ remarks that “it is one 
of the least common birds of New Russia, and does not pass the winter there,’—also that it is 
more distributed in the provinces on the east coast of the Black Sea, where he believes that it 
is stationary. | 
Naumann states that in Germany it is a bird of passage, arriving in April and leaving in 
August, or early in September, coming singly, travelling by night, and when leaving in the 
autumn migrating in family parties. 
In its habits the Woodchat Shrike much resembles the other Lanii, and, like those, makes 
his habitation in the open country and in fields where low bushes and trees are found. Though 
not so powerful as the Great Grey or Lesser Grey Shrike, it brooks no intruders near its home, 
and will attack and drive away Crows, Magpies, and other large birds. In gardens close to 
habitations it makes itself quite at home, and is of considerable utility as a destroyer of injurious 
insects, though it is sometimes accused of helping itself to bees, if a hive is in the neighbourhood. 
It affects bushes more than the other Shrikes, and is not often seen like them sitting con- 
spicuously on the top bough of a bush, or on an exposed dead branch of a tree, but hides amongst 
the foliage, and when sitting will jerk and spread its tail, throwing it first on one side and then 
on the other. 
Its food consists of coleopterous insects, grasshoppers, butterflies, and other insects, which it 
either picks up from the ground, or catches on the wing with great dexterity. 
Naumann (Joc. cit.) remarks as follows:—‘ In cold wet weather it robs the nests of small 
birds, or catches weakly young birds which have recently left the nest; but neither it nor 
Lanius minor ever catch full-grown birds. It does not go so far into the fields after insects as 
Lanius minor, nor does it hover over one place like the latter Shrike, and is fond of spitting a 
superabundance of food on thorns. 
“It often bathes, and will wet its plumage so that it has a difficulty in flying. Its note is 
krahts, kréhts, and its alarm note grack kjdck kack. It sings often, and mimics closely the song 
of other birds, mixing their notes with its own, and thus making a low, peculiar, and not dis- 
agreeable song. It seems to recollect the song of other birds well, as I heard it early in April 
mimic Sylvia hippolais, when none of these birds had yet made their appearance, or been heard 
that year.”’. 
Its nest is a neat but slight structure, composed entirely of plants, often of a sweet-smelling 
species. Several nests which Dresser took near Madrid in May, 1866, were composed of such 
plants, and lined with the same material; they were all placed in trees, near the stem, and at no 
great height from the ground. 
Mr. Salvin (Ibis, 1859, p. 312) writes as follows :— 
“It is everywhere abundant in Eastern Algeria and Tunis; it breeds in great numbers on 
the hill-sides in the neighbourhood of Djendeli, making a nest composed almost entirely of one 
material, viz. a small grey flower, which the bird collects with the stalk and entwines into its 
nest, employing the same for the lining. The whole structure is beautifully neat and compact.” 
Mr. Stevenson (‘ Birds of Norfolk,’ i. p. 64) quotes the following note of Mr. Hunt, in his 
List of Norfolk Birds, as to its supposed breeding in England :—“ Mr. Scales assures me that he 
has killed this rare species in the neighbourhood of Beechamwell, where he has known it to 
