In the Neighbourhood of Salisbury. 



187 



the old birds came back with greater fury. Sometimes they would 

 come at our heads like an arrow, so quick that we could hardly see 

 them, almost touching our heads, and at the same time uttering a 

 loud shriek, and making a whirring noise with their wings. They 

 continued to fly round us until we got quite out of the field by the 

 gas-house wall. 



" I also shot a Grey Shrike, I think it was about the beginning of 

 September, 1848, at Milford, as it was pitched on an ash tree that 

 then stood on a high bank on the right-Tiand side of a lane leading 

 from Milford Bridge to Clarendon. There were two of the birds 

 in the same tree. When I shot the one the other flew down, like 

 a stone, into the thick hedge, but before I could re-load the gun, it 

 made off into a thick wood on the other side of the field, towards 

 Laverstock. I took the bird home, and it was there for a day or 

 two. I then threw it away, as I did not know anyone in Salisbury 

 who stuffed birds at that time. I am certain that this was the same 

 kind of bird of which I took the nest in Gas Lane. - " And then 

 follows an accurate description of the bird, in the end of his letter. 



After receiving this letter I wrote to King again, asking him 

 various questions, about the occurrence, to satisfy myself that he 

 had not mistaken this species for that of the Red Backed Shrike, and 

 his answers, readily given, certainly carried entire conviction to my 

 mind of the accuracy of his statements. He told me he remembered 

 the date accurately, as it was the year before he left for France, 

 where he had an engagement for five years. He showed the nest 

 he had taken in 1839 (and the bird he shot in 1848), at the time to 

 an old bird-fancier in Salisbury, of the name of Kite, who at once 

 told him it was the Great Grey Shrike, a very rare bird in England. 

 He saw the bird also, more than once, when in France — on one oc- 

 casion being in company with a man named Stone, who had formerly 

 been a keeper in Marlborough Forest, who had shot a pair there, and 

 " had been told by the young gentlemen of the College that it was 

 the Great Grey Butcher Bird " — and in 1853, when King had again 

 returned to Salisbury, on a man of the name of Hart, a great bird- 

 fancier, coming to live there, he described to him also the taking of 

 the nest, which had made a great impression on his mind. On Hart 



