Passeres 63 



Lesser Grey Shrikes. The latter {L. minor) is only a 

 straggler from south and central Europe, but the former 

 {L. excubitor) is a pretty regular immigrant in the cold 

 season, especially to our eastern coasts, though it has 

 never been known to breed with us. It comes from 

 northern and central Europe, but the range can hardly 

 be defined here, on account of the various species or 

 races that have been described from Europe, Asia, north 

 Africa, and North America. It is very doubtful whether 

 the form that occasionally visits us, with one white wing- 

 bar {L. major), is separable from the typical form with 

 two bars. The colour is grey above and white below, 

 with black cheeks, wing- and tail-feathers. The nest is 

 larger than in the case of the Red-backed Shrike, and 

 the eggs are greenish white with olive markings. 



Family AMPBLID.^, or Waxwings 



Perhaps the most beautiful of our constant but 

 irregular visitors is the Waxwing {Ampelis garrulus), 

 a bird of many colours. It is mainly fawn-brown, with 

 more chestnut head, crest, and lower tail-coverts, black 

 cheeks and throat, and with yellow and black on the 

 wings and tail. Added to this the tips of the shafts of 

 the tail-feathers and of many of the secondaries are 

 wax -like and scarlet. In some years few visit us, in 

 some great numbers arrive, chiefly on our northern and 

 western coasts, and may be seen satisfying their hunger 

 on the berries untouched by the other birds ; they 

 generally come in our hardest winters, driven from their 

 summer haunts in Arctic Europe and Asia, where they 

 are very changeable in their breeding quarters, which 

 extend eastwards at least to Alaska and the Rocky 

 Mountains. The nestwas unknown until WoUeyprocured 



