SHRIKE. 3 



Before we fix the place which these birds should hold in the 

 System of Ornithology, it is necessary that the reader should be 

 acquainted with the reason of alloting to them the present situation. 



Mr. Ray ranks the Shrike amongst his Short-winged Hawks, 

 but takes in only the three sorts afterwards described in the British 

 Zoology, with a fourth, which is most likely a variety. Buffon 

 places them after the Falcons, on account of their ferocity.* M. 

 Brisson, on the contrary, puts them at the end of his fifth order, 

 along with the Thrushes and Chatterers, both of them belonging to 

 the Passerine Order of most systematists. 



As to Linnaeus, he has varied in his opinions. In the Fauna 

 Suecica of 1746, he ranks the Shrike as a Chatterer, and in his last 

 edition of this book, brings back the Chatterer to the Shrike, then 

 first formed into a genus, and places it in the Accipitrine Order, 

 taking in two species of Titmice, f In both the 10th and 12th edi- 

 tions of the Sy sterna Natura>, the author has added considerably to 

 this genus; in the former returning the Titmice to their proper place, 

 and in the latter throwing the Chatterers into a separate genus, and 

 this with the utmost propriety ; but notwithstanding the Lanius Genus 

 is ranked by him among the Accipitrine Order, it is not without a 

 particular note, confessing his sentiments to be wavering ; and it is 

 most likely, that had he lived to utter another edition, we should 

 have seen these birds placed among the Pies. J Kramer is inclined to 

 have the Shrike Genus ranked with themj though in his work it is 

 put with the Chatterers, in the Passerine Order — but Scopoli§ places 



* Yet he says, the Pie-grieches and Pie ought to be ranked together — " Je pense que tous 

 pourroient n'en faire qu'un. les Pies convenant en beaucoup de choses avec les Pie-grieches." 

 Hist.des Ois.'i. p. 309. 



f The Long-tailed Titmouse, and the Bearded Titmouse. 



+ Lanii acce^ lnt Accipitribus laniena, Picis moribus, Passeribus statura, adeoque inter 

 hos medii. — Syst. Nat. Ed. 12. 134. Note. 



|| Nee meo judicio erraret, qui easdem Corvis annumeraret,— Kratn. el. 364. 



§ Ann. Hist. Nat. i. p. 23. 



B2 



