190 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Shrike in the capture of passage Falcons. His epitome of the habits of the 

 bird is blunt but accurate, " She sits up on a high bough, making an 

 uncouth noise" ('Ornithology,' 1678, p. 21). I have had many oppor- 

 tunities of confirming this. On the Rhine they are cruelly persecuted by 

 the gamekeepers, and a Shrike that has lost his mate will often fly to the 

 top of a very tall poplar, and thence pour forth his woes, " making an 

 uncouth noise," as described by Willughby. The keepers are paid for 

 Shrikes by the feet they produce. Their plan is to mark down any pairs of 

 Shrikes that they can find on their beat in spring, and to wait until the 

 young ones are feathered, when they generally kill one of the old birds as 

 well as the brood. In consequence of this practice the species is being 

 exterminated in the Valley of the Upper Rhine, though Hoopoes, Golden 

 Orioles, and all insectivorous birds are stringently protected, as are their 

 eggs. But I met with the Grey Shrike also on higher grounds — up to an 

 elevation, in fact, of 5000 feet, though at this height it becomes rare. 

 Suitable food is more plentiful in the Valley of the Rhine than in more 

 elevated regions. Adrien Mollen, of Falconswaerd, told me that the Dutch 

 hawk-catchers have to catch fresh Shrikes for their use every season, as a 

 bird worked one season, if caged until the next autumn, would become too 

 tame to do its work efficiently. I have not alluded to the Grey Shrikes in 

 Scotland in ' The Zoologist,' having sent my Scotch notes on this species 

 to ' The Scottish Naturalist.' The sentence in which I wrote of the Grey 

 Shrike resting on its tarsus (Zool. 1891, p. 100) has suffered from a slip of 

 mine in transcribing. What I intended to say was, that a Shrike, when 

 holding a beetle in one foot, balances itself on the disengaged foot and the 

 tarsus of the engaged foot. — H. A. Macpherson (Carlisle). 



Distribution of the Red-backed Shrike and Cirl Bunting. — Will 

 you allow me to state, through the medium of ' The Zoologist,' that I am 

 engaged in working out (with a view to publishing the result of my 

 enquiries) the distribution of the Red-backed Shrike and the Cirl Bunting 

 in Great Britain, and in collecting a record of all the occurrences of the 

 Woodchat Shrike in this country ; and that I shall be greatly obliged to 

 any ornithologists who will be good enough to send me notes on these 

 subjects. — O. V. Aplin (Bloxham, Oxon). 



Variety of the Bullfinch. — A curiously marked variety of the Bullfinch 

 was lately shown to me. The beak and legs are yellow ; the breast and 

 nape pink ; the back is of a pale slate colour, mottled with pink ; the sides 

 of the face red, and over the beak are a few grey feathers ; the tail-coverts 

 are white. The bird is a male, and was taken near Reigate by a bird- 

 catcher in December last. It lived for some time in confinement, and at 

 death came into the hands of our local birdstuffer, Mr. Reeves. — E. P. 

 Lakkkn (Gatton Tower, Reigate). 



