3286 Insects. 



I had shot a female red-backed shrike in a low hedge at Peckham. The bird had at- 

 tracted my attention by its unsettled and jerking movements on the upper branches. 

 It did not fall to the ground, but rested on the hedge, and on removing it, I disco- 

 vered, close to the spot where it had been standing, a humble-bee empaled on one of 

 the thorns, and alive, as if it had jusl been placed there. I do not remember now at 

 what part the thorn had entered, but I perfectly recollect that my full impression at 

 the time was, that the shrike had so placed it. I have three or four times since met 

 with bees impaled on thorns, and once with a specimen of the silver Y moth (Plusia 

 Gamma) thus transfixed. These were all single insects ; but in the summer of 1849 

 (I think the beginning of June), on a low whitethorn bush on Shirley Common, near 

 Croydon, I found no fewer than three humble-bees impaled, and the remains of four 

 more on the ground at the bottom of the bush ; the impaled ones were within a space 

 of eighteen inches. I brought them home in boxes, but they have been mislaid, and 

 on looking for them after reading the remarks in the 'Zoologist,' I could find only the 

 three specimens sent with this. With the larger one, it is quite impossible that its si- 

 tuation could be accidental ; the thickness of the thorn, and its perpendicular growth, 

 would render it an impossibility for the insect to get thus placed by any movement of 

 its own (the thorn having entered the upper pari of the thorax), if so, the insect must 

 have been flying directly downwards, with its legs uppermost, which I believe is rather 

 contrary to its usual mode of flight. Besides, the remains of the others on the ground 

 would at once remove such an idea. The question is, how came they there ? I still 

 think it was the work of the shrikes. I know they were about the place, as a few days 

 afterwards I procured four eggs, which were taken from a nest found near the spot in 

 question. Is it likely that the bird does not eat all the insect, but pulls it to pieces 

 merely to procure the honey-bag ? It may find the fixing them favourable for such an 

 operation ; and this may account for the parts found on the ground, as it is scarcely 

 likely that the bird would be so clumsy as to drop them while taking them off, or, if 

 such had been the case, to allow them to lie there. Although I have dissected several 

 shrikes at different times, I do not recollect, in any instance, finding any portions of 

 bees ; the remains generally consisted of parts of beetles, and in one or two instances 

 the wing-cases of lady -birds. Believing, as I do, that in the majority of instances the 

 insects so found have been thus placed by the red-backed shrike, candour however 

 obliges me to confess that I cannot quite understand the circumstance of the three 

 perfect bees. Had there been but one, and the remains of the others, the case would 

 have been pretty clear, as that one might have been so left from the bird having been 

 disturbed. The spines of the furze being very sharp and thin, it is quite possible that 

 a caterpillar falling from an upper shoot, or a soft full-bodied moth carried by a strong 

 gust of wind, might be impaled on them ; but all that I have found (and I think the 

 majority of instances in which they have been discovered) have been on the white and 

 black thorns, the spines of which are in general not sufficiently sharp to make an open- 

 ing in an insect so tough as the humble-bee, without some little violence being used. 

 If those correspondents of the 'Zoologist' who have found insects (and especially bees) 

 thus transfixed, would send their observations, stating on what thorn discovered, and 

 whether shrikes breed in the locality, possibly something certain may be elucidated 

 respecting this subject, which now seems rather involved in obscurity. At present, 

 without attaching much value to the cases I have mentioned, I think the balance of 

 evidence is in favour of the act bciug that of the red-backed shrike. — Geo. Ingall; 81, 

 High Street, Borough. 



