Fig. 119.–Great Grey Shrike. Lanius excubitor. × 5⁄13.
Sub-fam. 4. Laniinae.–The Shrikes proper extend over the Palaearctic, Indian, and Ethiopian Regions, and alone of the Family occur in the New World, Lanius borealis and L. ludovicianus inhabiting North America. The lax plumage is either black, grey, and white, or is varied with rich red-brown. Urolestes has the feathers of the crown and neck lanceolate, and those of the sides long and fluffy; Laniellus is exceptional in being spotted. The young are browner, and are often transversely barred below, a fact also true of the Gymnorhininae. In the large genus Lanius are included all the British Butcher-Birds, L. excubitor, L. minor, L. pomeranus, L. collurio, the Great Grey, Lesser Grey, Woodchat and Red-backed Shrikes, of which only the last-named breeds in our island. The Sub-family contains many of these quarrelsome, rapacious birds, often seen perched on the tops of bushes, or chasing each other along the hedge-rows. The flight is strong and rapid, but undulating and brief; the food, which may be taken on the wing, or procured upon the ground, consists of small mammals and birds, insects, snakes, lizards, frogs, or even crabs and fruit, the creatures not devoured at once being impaled on thorns or spiky leaves. The larders are usually near the nest, which is a bulky mass of twigs, grass, and the like, with a softer lining, placed in a thick bush or fairly high up a tree; the four to seven eggs vary from green to reddish-buff or whitish, and are spotted, blotched, and generally zoned, with brown, red, olive, green, or a little grey. Sometimes the male incubates. The usual note is harsh and grating, but shriller cries or sweeter songs are not uncommon, while certain species are good mimics. Pellets of the indigestible portions of the food are ejected after eating, as in Birds of prey, and elsewhere.
Sub-fam. 5. Prionopinae.–The "Wood-Shrikes" are usually dull in colour, though some have the normal browns, greys, and blacks relieved by bright chestnut, fawn, or yellowish-white, and several are black and white, or uniform black. They frequent trees and bushes, and eat molluscs and fruit; but live chiefly upon insects captured on the branches or on the ground, if not by darting into the air from a perch. Their flight, rapid but short, is commonly performed with quivering wings; they hop easily upon the ground; while their notes take the form of a rather pleasing Thrush-like song or a harsh chatter. The slight, loose nest, built in a low fork, in the hollow of a stump, or even on a rocky ledge, is made of moss, grass, bark, roots, wool, feathers, lichens, cobwebs, or downy seeds; the three eggs being white, greenish, or buff, often with brown, black, and grey blotches, dashes, freckles, or zones.
Grallina, the "Magpie-Lark" of Australia and New Guinea, doubtfully placed here, possesses vocal organs abnormal for an Oscinine bird.[[288]] Graceful and tame, it frequents homesteads, stream-sides, and swamps, having a heavy, flapping flight, uttering a shrill, plaintive whistle, and plastering a nest of mud and grass on some horizontal bough. The three or four eggs are white or pinkish, marked or zoned with red, brown, and lilac.
The Helmet-bird of Madagascar (Euryceros prevosti), a purplish-black and chestnut species, with a compressed, swollen and hooked steel-blue beak exhibiting a pearly interior, should perhaps stand in a separate Family, Eurycerotidae, and not with the Shrikes.
Fam. XVII. Vireonidae.–The small group of "Greenlets" ranges from Winnipeg and Nova Scotia to Argentina. The compressed or depressed beak varies from stout and strongly hooked, as in Vireolanius and Cyclorhis, to small and comparatively weak as in Hylophilus; both mandibles being notched, and the gape bristly. The metatarsi are usually short and robust with slightly united anterior toes, but are longer and more feeble in Vireo; the wings may be elongated and pointed, as in Vireosylvia, or abbreviated and roundish, as in Vireo and Neochloe; the tail is normally short and even, with narrow feathers, but is rounded in Neochloe. The frontal feathers are somewhat erect. The coloration is olive, or green and grey above–with a black, brown, ashy, or reddish cap–and is grey, whitish, or yellow beneath; the wing frequently exhibits white bands, and the head white, dusky, or rufous stripes. White or yellow orbital rings occur in Lanivireo, a red-brown tail in Hylophilus ochraceiceps, a blue crown in Vireolanius pulchellus, a chestnut pectoral band in V. melitophrys. The bill and feet are sometimes red; the eyes white, red, or yellow. The sexes frequently differ in colour.
These active and fearless birds inhabit forests up to an altitude of ten thousand feet, as well as ravines, swamps, or even streets of towns; they are usually observed in pairs among the higher branches of trees, creeping and hanging to the twigs, or chasing one another about in play. Seldom do they seek the ground, but they take fairly long flights, and dart out after passing insects, which, with the larvae and a few berries and seeds, form the diet. The continuous song consists of loud, reiterated, flute-like notes, supposed in one case to resemble "Whip-Tom-Kelly"; some forms also utter harsher chirps or mews. The nest, a deep, firm cup of leaves, grass, bark, lichens, spiders'-webs and cottony materials, lined with fibres, fir-needles, delicate stems, or rarely down, is supported by some horizontal fork, over which the rim is commonly turned; the four or five eggs are white, generally spotted with red-brown, black, or purplish.
Fam. XVIII. Sittidae.–The Nuthatches, though closely allied to the Paridae, show a certain affinity to the Certhiidae (p. [571]). Typically they are stout little birds with long, pointed wings, and short nearly square tails; the bill is fairly long and strong, and is straight and awl-like, being notched only in Sitella and Hypositta, and slightly upcurved in the former.
Fig. 120.–Nuthatch. Sitta caesia. × 4⁄11. (From Natural History of Selborne.)