112 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



We believe the species, of which the female is figured, to be that described by 

 Wilson under the name of Lanius excubitor ; the more so, as his account of the 

 female perfectly agrees with our bird. It had long- been imagined that this was 

 identical with the European species ; but it appears, from a passage in theNouveau 

 Diet. d'Hist. Nat., that this belief has been abandoned. Nevertheless, it is desirable 

 first to state the distinctions between two male specimens of L. borealis and one of 

 L. excubitor, killed during the last year in Hertfordshire, near Tittenhanger Green. 

 In the general disposition and in the tint of their colours, no difference worthy of 

 remark is apparent. In the British specimen, the white upon the upper tail coverts 

 and scapulars is much more obscure ; but the colours of the wings and tail are 

 precisely alike. The true distinction seems to be, that borealis is obviously a 

 larger bird, not in regard to its total length or to its size after preservation (for 

 both these depend in a very great degree upon the mode of preparing the skins), 

 but in the relative length of the bill : that of borealis measures, from the angle of 

 the mouth to the extreme tip, lto inch ; that of excubitor ItV inch. In borealis, the 

 second quill is clearly shorter than the sixth ; the third is slightly shorter than the 

 fourth, and obviously longer than the fifth, — the fourth thus becoming the longest. 

 This disposition is observed in both sexes *. Now, in excubitor, the proportions 

 are different : in two specimens now before us, the third and fourth are of equal 

 length and are the longest, while the second is precisely as long as the sixth f. 

 We may, therefore, consider that the specific distinctions of the two are satisfac- 

 torily established. 



Let us now inquire whether the Lanius septentrionalis of Gmelin, as some writers 

 have supposed, be intended for our American borealis. Gmelin confessedly copies 

 his account from Latham, applying the above name to the " Northern Shrike" 

 of the Synopsis. This bird is stated to have ' ' the bill not much bent ; the plu- 

 mage brown above ; belly and vent inclining to brown ; the four middle feathers 

 plain brown ; the webs of the rest white at the tip ; legs short." Scarcely one of 

 these characters can be applied to either sex of our species ; while the length of 

 the tail, which is stated to be "two inches," is not only inapplicable to this, but 

 to every other Shrike yet discovered in North America. The same account is 

 repeated nearly verbatim in the General History of Birds, ii., p. 95. The descrip- 

 tion of the Northern Shrike, given by Vieillot, is manifestly a mere translation from 

 Latham. Pennant has obviously confounded the European and the American 



* We adopt, of course, the usual mode of considering the spurious quill as the first. 



•f We cannot reconcile these measurements and proportions with those given by Prince C. Bonaparte as distinctive 

 of the two species. — Syn., p. 72. 



