acked Shrike may be considered a tolerably
regular, but not very common, summer visitant to the Channel Islands. In
June, 1876, I several times saw a male bird about the Vallon, in
Guernsey. The female no doubt had a nest at the time in the Vallon
grounds, but I could not then get in there to search for it.

As the Red-backed Shrike frequently returns to the same place every
year, I expected again to find this bird, and perhaps the female and the
nest this year, 1878, about the Vallon, but I could see nothing of
either birds or nest, though I searched both inside and outside the
Vallon grounds.

Young Mr. Le Cheminant, who lives at Le Ree and has a small collection
of Guernsey eggs mostly collected by himself in the Island, had one
Red-backed Shrike's egg of the variety which has the reddish, or rather
perhaps pink, tinge. There were also some eggs in a Guernsey collection
in the Museum. These were all of the more ordinary variety. There were
also two skins--a male and female--in the Museum. The bird seems rather
local in its distribution about the Island, as I never saw one about the
Vale in any of my visits, not even this year, 1878, when I was there for
two months, and had ample opportunity of observing it had it been there.
There are, however, plenty of places nearly as well suited to it in the
Vale as about the Vallon or Le Ree. I have never seen it in either of
the other Islands, though no doubt it occasionally occurs both in Sark
and Herm, if not in Alderney.

Professor Ansted includes the Red-backed Shrike in his list, and marks
it only as occurring in Guernsey. I have no evidence of any other Shrike
occurring in the Islands, though I should think the Great Grey Shrike,
_Lanius excubitor_, might be an occasional autumn or winter visitant to
the Islands; but I have never seen a specimen myself or been able to
glean any satisfactory information as to the occurrence of one, either
from the local bird-stuffers or from Mr. MacCulloch, or any of my
friends who have so kindly supplied me with notes; neither does
Professor Ansted mention it in his list.

19. SPOTTED FLYCATCHER. _Muscicapa grisola_, Linnaeus. French,
"Gobe-mouche gris."--The Spotted Flycatcher is a regular and numerous
summer visitant, generally quite as numerous in certain localities as in
England, its arrival and departure being about the same time. It occurs
also in Sark and Herm, and probably in Alderney, but I do not remember
having seen one t