AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 73 



species anywhere in sight, and pursue magpies, crows, 

 jays, &c. which may intrude on their domain with 

 great impetuosity and loud outcries ; when the young 

 are hatched the old birds will occasionally even attack 

 any person approaching their nest, and seem to lose 

 all their natiu'al timidity. The usual note of the 

 Great Grey Shrike is a curious indescribable croak or 

 scream ; but it occasionally breaks out into what may 

 be called a song, a sort of jumble of the notes of 

 many birds. I have at this moment in the room as I 

 write a caged Jay, which sometimes reminds me very 

 much in his discourse of these outbreaks of the 

 Shrike, but the notes of the latter are more subdued, 

 and, indeed, only audible at a short distance. For a 

 short account of the services of this Shrike to the 

 Falconer or Falcon-catcher in Holland I refer my 

 readers to Yarrell's ' British Birds,' vol.i. p. 201, and 

 for a more detailed one to Messrs. Freeman and 

 Salvin's ' Falconry ' &c. before referred to. I have 

 found this species difficult to keep long in confine- 

 ment, but all those I have so kept have been wild- 

 caught birds. 



Since the above article was published several occur- 

 rences of the Great Grey Shrike in our county have 

 come to my knowledge ; as I have recorded these at 

 various times in the ' Zoologist,' I only append a few 

 of the details therein related with regard to them : — 

 Mr. AV. Tomalin, of Northampton, informed me that 

 a specimen of this Shrike was killed about the middle 

 of November 1880 in Midsummer Meadow, close to 

 that town. About the end of December of the year 

 just named I received a fine young bird of this species 

 alive, that had been taken, by means of bird-lime, near 

 Glendon, on November 19. 1 kept this bird alive 



