paid the same danegeld as in the reign of Edward the Confessor. Until Wales was annexed to England in the 13th century, Shrewsbury was one of the chief border towns, and as such it was besieged by Owen Gwyneddin 1067, but was relieved by William the Conqueror. In the reign of Henry I. it was garrisoned by Robert de Belesme, but surrendered to the king in 1102. It was several times burnt by the Welsh and was taken and held by them from 1215 to 1221. During the Welsh war in the reign of Edward I., the king made the town his headquarters, and in 1283 David, the last native prince of Wales, was tried and condemned to death by a parliament held here. In 1403 Henry Percy, son of the earl of Northumberland, was defeated and killed at Shrewsbury by Henry IV. At the beginning of the Civil War, Charles I. stayed in the town for some time, but it surrendered to parliament in 1645. The first extant charter, dated 1199, is a grant by Richard I. to the burgesses of the town at a fee farm of 40 marks, but Henry II. is known to have granted an earlier charter which was confirmed by King John in 1200. The same king granted two other charters, one in 1200 giving the right of electing the reeves, and the other in 1205 providing that their lands and tenements should be governed by the “laws of Breteuil, the laws of the Barony and the laws of the Englishry.” Henry II. in 1227 granted a gild merchant with a house. Besides these charters there are numerous confirmations before the incorporation charter of Elizabeth of 1586. Charles I. in 1638 altered the corporation to a mayor, 24 aldermen and 48 assistants. In 1684 the burgesses surrendered their charter to the king and received a new one in the following year which, however, did not change the form of government. From 1295 to 1885 Shrewsbury returned two members to parliament, but then the number was reduced to one.
See H. Owen and J. C. Blakeway, A History of Shrewsbury (1825); Thomas Phillips, The History and Antiquities of Shrewsbury (1837); Victoria County History, Shropshire.
SHRIKE, a bird's name, so given by Turner (1544), but solely on the authority of Sir Francis Lovell, for Turner had seen the bird but twice in England, though in Germany often, and could not find anyone else who so called it. However, the word[1] was caught up by succeeding writers; and, though hardly used except in books—for butcher-bird is its vernacular synonym—it not only retains its first position in literary English, but has been largely extended so as to apply in general to all birds of the family Laniidae and others besides. The name Lanius, in this sense, originated with C. Gesner[2] (1555), who thought that the birds to which he gave it had not been mentioned by the ancients. C. J. Sundevall, however, considers that the Malacocraneus of Aristotle was one of them, as indeed Turner had before suggested, though repelling the latter's supposition that Aristotle's Tyrannus was another, as well as P. Belon's reference of Collyrion.
The species designated shrike by Turner is the Lanius excubitor of Linnaeus and nearly all succeeding authors, nowadays[3] commonly known as the greater butcher-bird, ash-coloured or great grey shrike—a bird which visits the British Islands pretty regularly, though not numerously, in autumn or winter, occasionally prolonging its stay into the next summer; but it has never been ascertained to breed there, though often asserted to have done so. This is the more remarkable since it breeds more or less commonly on the continent from the north of France to within the Arctic Circle. Exceeding a song-thrush in linear measurements, it is a much less bulky bird, of a pearly grey above with a well-defined black band passing from the forehead to the ear-coverts; beneath it is nearly white, or—and this is particularly observable in Eastern examples—barred with dusky markings. The quill-feathers of the wings, and of the elongated tail, are variegated with black and white, mostly the former, though what there is of the latter shows very conspicuously, especially at the base of the remiges, where it forms either a single or a double patch. Much smaller than this is the red-backed shrike, L. collurio, the best-known species in Great Britain, where it is a summer visitor, and, though its distribution is rather local, it may be seen in many parts of England and occasionally reaches Scotland. The cock is a sightly bird with his grey head and neck, black cheek-band, chestnut back and pale rosy breast, while the hen is ordinarily of a dull brown, barred on the lower plumage. A more highly coloured species is called the woodchat, L. auriculatus or rutilus, with a bright bay crown and nape, and the rest of its plumage black, grey and white. This is an accidental visitor to England, but breeds commonly throughout Europe. All these birds, with many others included in the genus Lanius, which there is no room here to specify, have, according to their respective power, the very remarkable habit (whence they have earned their opprobrious name) of catching insects, frogs, lizards or small birds and mammals, and of spitting them on a thorn or of fixing them in a forked branch, the more conveniently to tear them in pieces and eat them.
The shrikes belong to the Passerine family Laniidae, the limits of which are doubtful, but which is divided into five sub-families: Gymnorhininae, Malaconotinae, Pachycephalinae, Laniinae and Prionopinae. The Laniinae or true shrikes occur in the Old and New Worlds, the other sub-families are limited to the Old World. The shrikes and their immediate allies are active and powerful birds, with stout bills often strongly hooked. Their diet is chiefly insects and small frogs, lizards, birds and mammals, but they also take seeds and fruits. The “greenlets” of North and South America are active and fearless birds, similar in general habits to the Laniidae and formerly regarded as forming a sub-family of that group, but now placed in a separate family the Vireonidae. (A. N.)
SHRIMP, a name applied in general to the smaller crustacea of the order Macrura and in particular to an edible species found on the coasts of northern Europe (Crangon vulgaris). The shrimps and their allies are distinguished from the larger Macrura, such as the lobsters and crayfishes, by greater development of the paddle-like limbs of the abdomen or tail, which are used in swimming. The abdomen is usually sharply bent between the third and fourth segments and has a characteristically humped appearance when straightened out.
The common shrimp is found abundantly on the coasts of the British Islands, in shallow water wherever the bottom is sandy. It is 2 or 3 in. long, slightly flattened and with the rostrum or beak, in front of the carapace, very short. It is of a translucent greyish colour, speckled with brown and closely resembles the sand in which it lives. On many parts of the coast the shrimp fishery is of considerable importance. The instrument generally employed is a bag-shaped net attached to a semicircular hoop, provided with a long handle and pushed over the surface of the sand by a fisherman wading in the water at ebb-tide. When boiled, the body becomes of a brownish colour and on this account the species is sometimes termed the “brown shrimp.” The name of “pink shrimp” is given to Pandalus montagui or annulicornis, which turns red on boiling and which resembles in form the larger “prawns,” having a long rostrum or beak, saw-edged above and below. The smaller species of Leander, especially L. squilla, are sold as “cup shrimps” in some places.
The larger shrimp-like crustacea are generally known as “prawns,” the name being especially applied in Britain to the species Leander serratus, formerly called Palaemon serratus, which is highly esteemed for the table. In warmer seas many other kinds of prawns are caught for food. These are generally species of the genus Penaeus (like P. caramote of the Mediterranean) which are distinguished from all those already mentioned by having pincers on the first three, instead of only on the first two pairs of legs. The large river-prawns of the genus Palaemon
- ↑ Few birds enjoy such a wealth of local names as the shrikes. M. Rolland (Faune pop. de la France, ii. 146–151) enumerates upwards of ninety applied to them in France and Savoy; but not one of they has any affinity to our word “shrike.”
- ↑ He does not seem, however, to have known that butcher-bird was an English name; indeed it may not have been so at the time, but subsequently introduced.
- ↑ According to Willughby, Rae and Charleton, it was in their day called in many parts of England “Wierangle” (Ger. Würgengel and Würger, the strangler); but it is hard to see how a bird which few people in England could know by sight should have a popular name, though Chaucer had used it in his Assemblye of Foules.
