116 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



narration of facts has never yet been questioned, we shall lay before the reader 

 the arguments which have influenced our opinion in this matter. 



In the first place, it will be necessary to institute a rigorous comparison of our 

 bird with the only two American species described by modern ornithologists, and 

 with which it may appear to agree : these are the Laniics Carolinensis of Wilson 

 and the L. ardosiaceus of Vieillot. The first of these is the L. Ludovicianus of 

 Prince Charles Bonaparte. This bird, we are expressly told by Wilson, is much 

 darker on the upper parts than the Great American Shrike (L. borealis, Nob.), 

 and is decidedly smaller ; secondly, that it inhabits the warmer parts only of the 

 United States, as the rice plantations of Carolina and Georgia. It is further 

 obvious, that Wilson met with this species only while travelling through these 

 southern provinces. He professes his ignorance of its nest and of its eggs : the 

 former he describes partially from hearsay ; and the latter he " he had no oppor- 

 tunity of seeing." It is, therefore, clear, that his Loggerhead Shrike must be 

 unknown in all those northern States, towards Philadelphia, which he had so 

 thoroughly explored, and where he principally resided. The additional informa- 

 tion given by Prince C. Bonaparte upon Wilson's Carolinensis, although short, is 

 quite to the same purpose. He calls the plumage dark slate, while that of the borealis 

 is termed light slate ; and the habitat is restricted to the i( southern States." 

 Both these writers, moreover, agree respecting the colours of the four middle tail 

 feathers, which are totally black ; whereas they state that the borealis has only the 

 two middle tail feathers black, the two next being (as in our bird) tipped with 

 white. Upon looking over the inimitable drawings of our friend M. Audubon, 

 we were particularly struck with the very dark colour of his figures of the Logger- 

 head Shrike (more resembling that of the African L. collaris than of the European 

 excubitor), as being very different from a bird which we had long possessed under 

 this name ; and upon our mentioning the circumstance, we were assured that the 

 figures were exact representations of the bird, as killed and drawn by our friend 

 in Louisiana. On the presumption that these testimonies can be relied upon as 

 strictly correct, we consider that our species is distinct from the Carolinensis of 

 Wilson and Audubon and from the Ludovicianus of Bonaparte. 



We now turn to the L. ardosiaceus of Vieillot. If this writer had described 

 the male of borealis, or if he had not clearly expressed his belief that it was like 

 the female, we should at once have concluded that his ardosiaceus was the same 

 bird as Wilson's Carolinensis ; but he has himself furnished us with proofs against 

 this idea. In the very commencement of his description he convinces us that he 



