17.  BARN OWL. Aluco flammeus, Linnaeus.  French, “Chouette effraie.”—­I have never seen the Barn or Yellow Owl alive in the Channel Islands myself, but Mr. MacCulloch does not consider it at all rare in Guernsey, and Mr. Jago informs me the Barn Owls have taken possession of a pigeon-hole in a house in the Brock Road opposite his, and that he sees and hears them every night.  Some years ago he told me he shot one near the Queen’s Tower.  He was not scared like the man who shot one in the churchyard, and thought he had shot a cherubim, but he had to give up shooting owls, as the owner of the pigeon-hole where the owls have taken up their abode remonstrated with him, and he has since refrained, though he has had several chances.  The vacancy caused by the one being shot was soon filled up.

The Barn Owl is mentioned in Professor Ansted’s list, and restricted to Guernsey and Sark.  There are two specimens in the Museum, both of which are said to have been killed in Guernsey.

18.  REDBACKED SHRIKE. Lanius Collurio, Linnaeus.  French, “Pie-grieche ecorcheur.”—­The Red-backed 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.