NOTES AND QUERIES. 113 



form between L. excubitor and L. leucoptera) has a good deal more white on 

 the secondaries than L. excubitor, while L. major has none. But I believe 

 there is not much chance of L. major and L. homeyeri interbreeding, as 

 their normal breeding ranges do not appear to overlap. It is apparently 

 quite possible, however, for Prof. Collett has noted ('Ibis,' 1886, p. 30) an 

 example intermediate between L. excubitor and L. homeyeri (nearer the 

 latter than the former), procured at Throndjem on May 1st, 1881 ; and I 

 may mention, for what it is worth, that I have a skin of L. homeyeri, 

 received from a dealer, who was positive about the locality, labelled 

 Archangel. Here I suppose it would meet L. major. Here Collett, also 

 {op. cit.), gives L. homeyeri as occurring occasionally in Northern Europe. 

 T have a skin, marked on one of the late Herr Moschler's labels 

 " L. homeyeri,'" which is not of that form at all, but is intermediate between 

 L. excubitor and L. major; it has a rumo rather paler than these interme- 

 diate birds usually have, and, like Mr. Backhouse's example, is quite 

 unmarked on the under parts. In L. homeyeri the rump is nearly, if not 

 quite, white. If there are many similar specimens to this, labelled in the 

 same manner, they will doubtless cause misconception in some cases. How 

 this bird came to be in South Russia in May, as its label indicates, it is 

 difficult to understand. If it was about to breed, then the interbreeding 

 which Mr. Backhouse hints at can of course take place in Southern, as well 

 as in Northern, Europe. But in that case we get a great confusion of the 

 local races which Mr. Seebohm has set out in a most instructive account of 

 our Grey Shrikes (' Siberia in Asia,' p. 243, footnote), and Herr R. Collett 

 in his paper in ' The Ibis ' (ut sup.). But it really seems almost impossible 

 to assign exact ranges to'the races. Herr Collett mentions a male procured 

 at Hamar, on Nov. 8th, 1885, which is "hardly distinguishable " from a 

 female of L. borealis from Nevada (March 28th, 1868), save for the short 

 basal white mark on the secondaries, a character, he adds, " perhaps never 

 met with in the true L. borealis." And he quotes Mr. Seebohm (' Ibis,' 

 1880, p. 115) for a bird from Amoor which was indistinguishable from L. 

 borealis (of North America). The only conclusion to which it seems possible 

 to arrive is, that there is one species of Great Grey Shrike which ranges 

 over Northern and Central Europe, Northern Asia, and the northern part 

 of North America, and branches off into forms known as L. excubitor, L. 

 major, L. homeyeri, L. leucoptera, L. mollis, and L. borealis ; that some of 

 these races interbreed with their neighbours, and that they occasionally appear 

 (perhaps wander) out of their proper ranges. From Herr Collett's observa- 

 tions it appears that a union of two Grey Shrikes (forms unknown), on the 

 Dovre Fjeld, may result in the production of, apparently, typical males of 

 L. excubitor and a typical female of L. major. A bird, of which the sex 

 was unfortunately not ascertained, but which was probably a young female, 

 was killed close to Banbury, on Dec. 23rd, 1891, and has come into my 





ZOOLOGIST. — MARCH, 1892. K 



