Order INSESSORES.
(Perching Birds.)
THE GREAT GREY SHRIKE.
Ash-coloured Butcher-bird.
Lanius excubitor, Linn.
Has occasionally been obtained in the autumn and winter.
Two of these birds came under the notice of Templeton ; one shot in the county of Down, and sent to him by Rainey Maxwell Esq., and the other, observed by himself in the county of Antrim, about the beginning of the present century. Eour, obtained in these counties, have come under my own observation. The first, a bird in mature plumage, was shot at Echlinville, late in the autumn, more than twenty years ago ; — the second, an adult male, was killed at Beechmount, near Belfast, in November, 1824; another individual was in company with it, and remained about the place for a few weeks afterwards ; — in a neighbouring locality, one, (perhaps the latter bird,) was shot during the few days of frost which occurred at the end of January, 1835. A recent adult male was shot on a thorn-hedge at Kilmore, county of Down, on the 15th of January, 1845: in its crop was the greater portion of a grey linnet, which was recognised by a few feathers that remained. On the 16th of November, 1846, a recent bird of this species, killed a few days before, came under my examina- tion in Belfast. The contents of the stomach consisted entirely
