64 
BUTCHER-BIRD. 
a publican purchased for a shilling what would have fetched two or 
three guineas where its value was known : this rare wanderer was, how- 
ever, so entirely unknown, that it was rejected at the second table as 
improper food, in consequence of the pectoral muscles differing in 
colour from the other parts of the breast, a circumstance not unusual 
in birds of the grous kind. Some country gentlemen supping at the 
inn the following evening, and hearing of the circumstance, desired 
that they might be introduced to the princely bird, and partook of it 
cold at their repast. 
These birds pair early in the spring. The female lays two eggs on 
the bare ground, which are about four weeks hatching. The young 
follow the dams soon after they part from the egg, but are not capable 
of flying for some time. The egg is larger than than of a turkey, of 
an olive-brown colour, blotched with pale ferruginous and ash-coloured 
spots. Their food is green corn, the tops of turnips, and various other 
vegetables, as well as worms ; but they have been known to eat frogs, 
mice, and young birds of the smaller species. It is not properly 
migrative with us, as it only leaves its usual haunts in very severe 
winters, when the downs are covered with snow for some time. Pressed 
by hunger, it repairs to the more enclosed and sheltered situations in 
small flocks, and even strays to a great distance. 
These occasional migrations always prove fatal. So large an object 
soon attracts notice, and it rarely escapes the number of its pursuers. 
This noble bird was formerly found in the woods of Yorkshire, and 
even as far as Scotland, as we are informed by Plector Boece, and Sir 
Robert Sibbald. It is common in some parts of Russia, and the 
deserts of Tartary, also in some parts of Germany, but Temminck 
says it is rare in Holland.* 
BUTCHER-BIRD {Lanius excuhitor, Linn^us.) 
*Lanms excubitor, Linn. Syst. 1. p. 135. 11. — Faun. Suec. No. 80. — Gmel. Syst. 
l.p. 300. 11. — Lath.lnd. Orn. 1. p. 67. sp. 6. — Lanius, seu Collurio cinereus 
major, Rail, Syn. p. 18. A. 3. — Will. p. 53. t. 10. — Briss. 2. p. 141. 1. — 
Greater Butcher Bird, Will. p. 87. — Alhin, 2. p. 13. — Pie Grieche, Buff. Ois. 
1. p. 296. t. 20. — Ib. pi. Enl. 445. — Temm. Man. d’Orn. 1. p. 142. — Grauer 
Wurger, Metier, Tasschenb. Deut. l. p. 87. — Frisch, t. 59. — Blaauwe Klauwier, 
Sepp. Nederl. Vbg. t, p. 121. — Great Cinereous Shrike, Br. Zool. No. 71. t. 
33.— -Arct. Zool. 2, No. 127. — Lewins Br. Birds, 1. 1. 30. — Lath. Syn. 1. p. 160. 
4. — Mont. Orn. Diet. — Pull. CM. Dorset, p. 4. — Bewick's Br. Birds, 1. p. 58. 
— Don. Br. Birds, 4. t. 87. — Selby, pi. 43. fig. 1. p. 140. 
Provincial. — Mountain Magpie. Mattiges. Wireangle. Murdering 
Pie. Skreek or Shrike.* 
The weight of this species rather exceeds two ounces ; length ten 
inches, breadth fourteen ; the bill is black, strong, and much hooked at 
