the body very pale red ; under tail-coverts white ; legs, toes
and claws, black. The length of the adult male is about
seven inches and a h a lf; the wing from the carpal joint to
the end of the third and longest feather, three inches and
seven-eighths; the first feather less than half the length of
the second which is nearly as long as the fourth.
The adult female ordinarily has the beak dark brown;
irides hazel: no black about the head, but a light-coloured
streak over the eye; the whole of the upper surface of the
head and body reddish-brown ; wings like those of the male,
but the rufous margins narrower; tail-feathers above brown,
tinged with red, the outer edge of the weh of each outside
tail-feather dull white; below grey, tipped with dull white.
Chin dull white: under surface of the body and the sides
greyish-white, crossed with greyish-brown semilunar lines;
abdomen and under tail-coverts, dull white. The length of
the female described rather exceeded that of the male.
Young males are like adult females, but have the darker semilunar
marks on the back as well as on the breast.
Some particulars in reference to the female of this
species require here to be noticed. Though the description
just given is that of its ordinary appearance, it has been
obsexwed by various ornithologists and in different countries
that occasionally a hen Red-backed Shrike is found very, if
not exactly, similar in plumage to that worn by the cock.
In England the fact seems to have been first noticed by Hoy,
who, in 1831, recorded (Mag. Nat. Hist. iv. p. 344) his
having found a nest of this species attended by tw'o apparently
male birds. Struck by the singularity of the fact he
shot both, and “ on dissection one proved the female, with
the eggs much enlarged, and one nearly ready for exclusion.”
In 1835, Mr. Blyth met with an almost similar example:
“ it was,” he says (Mag. Nat. Hist. viii. p. 364), “ a female,
partly in the male plumage; but the ovaries were perfect,
and contained eggs; and it wms in company with a partner
of the other sex at the time it xvas shot.” “ I have reason
to believe,” he continues, “ that this was a young individual;
that is to say, a bird of the preceding year.” Now these
cases, and others which might be cited, will be seen to bear
no real analogy to the numerously-observed instances of the
assumption of the male plumage by the females of many
gallinaceous birds, in which it is accompanied if not induced
by a peculiar condition of the ovaries, while in the former
those organs are in full vigour. Some writers have assumed
that it is only the very old hen of this Shrike which acquires
the cock’s plumage, but Mr. Blyth’s statement as to the age
of the example he describes shews that the fact is not to be
thus explained. In the absence of any mode of accounting
for the curious fact, it may be here suggested that this
is perhaps a case of what has become of late known to zoologists
under the name of “ sexual dimorphism,” and has now
been frequently observed in many groups of animals.
Knowing that the adult females of the Grey Shrikes and
that of the Woodcliat, next to be described, closely resemble
their respective males, while (setting aside the exceptional
cases just cited) the hen Red-backed Shrike without doubt
most generally differs greatly from the cock, it is worth considering
whether any law's which govern the assumption by
birds of peculiar styles of plumage according to their several
ages and sexes can he discovered. Cuvier long ago made
two assertions on this subject (Règne Animal. Paris : 1817,
i. p. 296), which were no doubt true so far as his experience
went, and they have been dignified by the name of “ laws.”
These are : first, that when, as is most often the case, the
female differs from the male by its less lively colours, the
young of both sexes resemble her ; and secondly, that wdien
the adult males and females are of the same coloui, the
young have a livery peculiar to themselves. To these two a
third “ law ” has been added in former editions of the present
work : namely, that whenever adult birds assume a plumage
during the breeding season decidedly different in colour from
that which they bear in the winter, the young birds of the year
have a plumage intermediate in the general tone of its colour
compared with the two periodical states of the parent biids,
and bearing also indications of the colours to be afterwards
attained at either period.