GREAT GREY SHRIKE. 601 



pecker^ very undulating. It was probably very tired ; for an hour or two 

 afterwards a hoj brought it up to our room, and was delighted to receive 

 fourpence for it. Several more arrived later. 



In ornithology there seem to be very few rules without exceptions. 

 Almost all resident birds are early breeders. Many of them pair for life; 

 and it is only natural to suppose that birds which are hardy enough to 

 brave a Dutch winter will begin to breed as soon as the April sunshine 

 and the April flowers announce the return of spring. The Great Grey 

 Shrike appears to be an exception to this rule. When I went to Valcons- 

 waard to study the habits of some of the rare or accidental visitors to our 

 islands at their breeding-grounds, the eggs of the Great Grey Shrike were 

 one of the objects of my special care ; but though there were three of us (I 

 was accompanied by my friends Mr. C. By grave Wharton and Mr. H. M. 

 Labouchere), and though we had everj^ boy in the village engaged in our 

 service, it was not until the 19th of May that we took a nest containing 

 four eggs. We had taken eggs of nearly all the common birds, even of 

 such migrants as the Sedge-^\^arbler, Cuckoo, Nightingale, and Blue- 

 throat, before the Great Grey Shrike's nest was discovered, within a couple 

 of feet of the top of a slender Scotch-fir, about eighteen feet from the 

 ground, in the middle of a pine-wood. On the 21st another nest was 

 brought to us, containing'five eggs. On the 27th one of our best pioneers, 

 a Dutch lad of perhaps fourteen, came in to announce to us that he had 

 found the nest of a klapekster, the local name of the Great Grey Shrike. 

 It was a dismal, rainy day ; but we soon put on our waterproofs, and a long 

 walk brought us to an open space in a small wood. The nest was in the 

 fork of an oak-tree about thirty feet from the ground. The bird was on, 

 but flew off as the boy was ascending the tree, and began to fly anxiously 

 about. Sometimes it settled in a tree, often on the topmost branch ; and 

 once it hovered in the air, with its body almost perpendicular, opposite the 

 nest, which contained only two fresh eggs. The nest of the Great Grey 

 Shrike is a somewhat bulky structure, as large as that of a Blackbird. 

 Outside it is composed of slender twigs, dry grass, a few leaves, and a little 

 moss, and is lined with roots, mooI, hair, and feathers. The number of 

 eggs varies from five to seven. They are huffish or greenish white in 

 ground-colour, blotched and spotted with olive-brown of diff'erent shades, 

 and with underlying markings of violet-grey. Usually most of the spots 

 are on the large end of the egg, where many of them are confluent. 

 Sometimes they form an irregular zone, and are generally somewhat ill- 

 defined. The eggs of this Shrike do not differ very much; and the red 

 type of egg, found in those of L. collurio and L. rufus, appears never to 

 occur. They vary in length from I'l to I'O inch, and in breadth from -8 

 to "75 inch. 



The Great Grey Shrike has the general colour of the upper parts clear 



