72 
LANIADiE. 
INOESSORES. 
DEN TIROSTRES. 
LANIADJE. 
WOODCHAT SHRIKE. 
LANIUS RUFUS. 
PLATE XX. FIG. II. 
Naturalists, especially those who take an interest in 
that portion of Ornithology which the present pages are 
intended to illustrate, have lost a most ardent and suc¬ 
cessful coadjutor by the death of Mr. Hoy; I have 
greatly to regret his loss, for had he been yet living I 
should have been enabled, as will be seen from the fre¬ 
quent quotations from his information in my former work, 
to have given much more that would have been new and 
interesting during the progress of the present. 
He says of the Woodchat, that “it differs from Lanius 
collurio in the choice of a situation for its nest, placing 
it invariably on trees, and preferring the oak. The nest 
is fixed in the fork of a projecting branch, and is com¬ 
posed on the outside of sticks and wool, mixed with 
white moss from the bodies of the trees, and lined with 
fine grass and wool. Eggs, four or five in number, 
rather smaller than those of the red-backed shrike, and 
varying much in markings, the ground colour being 
pale blue in some, in others a dirty white, surrounded 
near the larger end with a zone of rust-coloured spots ; 
in some again the markings and spots are of a paler 
colour, and more dispersed over the egg. It is not a 
wild bird, building close to houses and public roads. It 
is abundant in some parts of the Netherlands, and 
