32 
Mr. Robert Collett on 
In the summer of 1884, when on the Dovre Fjeld, I made 
an observation, concerning which there can be no question 
whatever. On June the 30th, I came across, in the upper¬ 
most pine-forests near Hjerkin (a locality well known to 
English tourists), a family of Shrikes, comprising, along 
with the parent birds, a whole brood of young ones just 
fledged, and habited accordingly in their peculiar nesting- 
plumage. As with all young birds, the feathers in this dress 
were soft and loose, though grown to their full length. Of 
these young ones, which had unquestionably been hatched 
together, I shot three; the rest flew off in company with the 
parent birds into the forest. 
Two of those killed were males and in every respect typical 
specimens of L. excubitor , the spot on the secondaries being 
large and snowy white, with the normal length of 26 mm., 
in one even 27 mm. The third example, a female, was an 
equally typical specimen of L, major , not having the faintest 
trace of any white bases on the secondaries. 
In other respects, the differences between these three indi¬ 
viduals were slight in the extreme; the female and one of the 
males exhibited a somewhat darker tone on the back than did 
the other male, which had a clear pearly-grey tint, precisely as 
in very old and rich-coloured specimens. The brownish-grey 
edgings observable in most individuals towards the fall of the 
year were almost wanting in the two males, but distinct in 
the female. The underparts were alike; in all of them the 
vermiculations on the loose downy feathers were not sharply 
defined, as is often the case in the autumn and winter plumages 
of young birds, but narrow, closely arranged, and broken up, 
as it were, into points; more especially on the breast and the 
sides of the neck there was nothing left but the points. The 
black spot on the first tail-feather was large in the female 
{about 35 mm.), in one of the males normal (about 20 mm.), 
in the other small and on one side separated by the white 
colour. 
Last summer (1885) I made a similar observation in Fin- 
mark, and shot from a nest a male and a female, of which 
the former was in every respect a typical specimen of L. ex- 
