AND IRELAND OF THE RED-RACKED SHRIKE. 
303 
and Barnard’s Heath, St. Albans, are other localities in which its 
occurrence is recorded in the Notes. 
Mr. Percy E. Cooinbe, of The Cedars, Rickmansworth, reports 
that the Red-backed Shrike was “fairly abundant in the neighbour- 
hood of Kings Langley in 1879. In May of that year a tine 
male was seen near Elstree, and on the same day another was 
noticed near Udsey Grange. Seen also near St. Albans” (in lit.). 
“ It used to bo fairly common round Haileybury (on the 
Hoddesdon side) in the years 1872-6” (Rev. 11. A. Macpherson, 
in lit.). 
Mr. Arthur II. Macpherson writes of more recent years concerning 
the same locality: “It seems to be <piito common; and my 
brothers, who have been at school there, always talked of its eggs 
as being most easily procured ” (in lit.). 
Middlesex. “A common summer visitant .... This 
bird has not been numerous of late years. Perhaps this is owing 
to the prevailing habit of ‘plashing’ or ‘laying’ the hedges, for the 
Butcher-bird delights in a tall tangled hedge” (Mr. .1. E. Har ting’s 
‘ Birds of Middlesex,’ 1866, p. 24). 
Lord Lilford mentions that in his school-days it was especially 
abundant in the neighbourhood of Harrow-on-the-Hill, “ where we 
often used to find two or three nests on a summer afternoon in the 
thick and ragged fences which divided the great grass fields of that 
district.” lie adds: “ 1 understand that the bird is now uncommon 
thereabouts” (‘ Notes on Birds of Northamptonshire’). 
Mr. J. Young writes: “It is very common between London 
and Harrow (or was). I have seen young birds being fed by 
the parent birds just the other side of Stonebridge Park,” a mile 
beyond Willesden, on the Harrow road. He has also known the 
nest close to Stan more (in lit.). 
Several naturalists attest the abundance of this bird in the 
neighbourhood of Harrow- on-t he- II ill. M r. G. E. II. Barret t-IIamil ton 
writes, from observations in the years 1885-90, that it was 
a common bird in some places about there, and he had known of 
its nest being built right on the hill, in the garden of the Knoll. 
He remarks that it would no doubt be more abundant were it not 
for the number of its nests taken by birds'-nesters (in lit.). 
Mr. Joseph Vine, of South Highgate, writes: “Although not 
so frequently seen at Highgate now as in former years, there are 
