166 LESSER GREY SHRIKE. 
scription. It lives in the same localities, and has the 
same manners and habits as that bird. 
Lanus minor inhabits the Archipelago, Turkey, Italy, 
Spain, Greece, and many parts of the north and 
south of France. It is found also in Germany rarely, 
and still more so m Holland. It builds its nest of 
odoriferous herbs, according to Degland, and M. Gerbe 
says that in Provence it always constructs the outside 
of stalks, in greater or less quantity, of the wild im- 
mortelle, (Amaranthus.) It lays five or six eggs, obtuse, 
generally greenish, sometimes greyish or slightly bluish, 
with spots of a violet grey and olive, particularly at the 
larger end. 
Of this bird in Greece, Count Mihle observes that 
it is as abundant as L. meridionalis, yet “I never saw 
it with so red an abdomen as the figure in Gould’s 
splendid work.” 
The following is Temminck’s description:—Adult male. 
Forehead and auditory region, and parts around the 
eyes, black; occiput, nape, and back, ash-colour; throat 
white; chest and flanks of a red rose; wings black, a 
white speculum on the quill feathers; first tail quill 
white, the second black along the shaft, on the third a 
great black spot tipped with white; on the fourth a 
larger black spot, at the end pure white; four middle © 
quills entirely black. 
The female has the rose-colour duller; black bands on ~ 
the forehead and ears smaller; the band and the black 
of the wings more inclined to a brown tint. 
Young of the year in the two sexes, after the autumn 
moult, have no black band on the forehead; this part 
is in winter of a dull ash-colour; after the sprig moult 
the black band appears, and the rose on the chest is 
brighter. Young birds of the year are also distinguished 
