( Ml ) 



we shot was in worn plumage and exceptionally dark, so that at first we thonght 

 we had hit upon another form, but we soon shot in the same plain specimens as 

 light as the lightest Bislcra ones. Farther south these Shrikes were by no means 

 rare in the dayats, every dayat being inhabited by one or two pairs. 



These Shrikes were most numerous in the gardens of the M'zab conntry, 

 in the oases of Berr)'an and Ghardaia. A very curious fact is, that while they 

 are very wide-awake and only to be obtained with full charges of a sporting 

 gun in all the other places we visited (though they are more daring near their 

 nests), they were <|uite tame and confiding in the M'zab oases, so that it was 

 easy to shoot them with a very small bore walking-stick gun. While we found 

 these Shrikes almost entirely confined to the Zizyphua and Tamarix bushes near 

 Biskra and everywhere south to Touggonrt, as well as near Laghouat and in the 

 dayats, in the M'iiab oases they were nnnierous in tlie gardens, sitting on the fences, 

 palm-trees, wells and walls. They probably nested in the palms and trees of the 

 gardens, as in many places there were neither Zizi/p/ius nor Tamarix near. In 

 the M'zab country we saw young ones being fed by their parents in April. The 

 nestling plumage is sandy buflfy grey on the upperside, the wing-coverts and 

 secondaries have wide buff instead of white edges, the lores arc grey instead of 

 black, the sides of the breast are greyish buff, very indistinctly barred with grey. 



61. Lanius senator senator L. 



Laniug .senator fiiicklgeri Kleinsohmidt, Falco iii. p. 08 (1907 — Terra typica Lambfese in Algeria.) 



Hartert {Vi'ig. pal. Fauna i. pp. 43.j, 43()) has described the variations of the 

 Red-headed or AVoodchat Shrike, and specially discussed the N.W. African liirds. 

 Attempts to separate the latter have repeatedly been made : Koenig and several 

 other authors believed that they had lighter heads, Erlanger stated they had a 

 stronger ochre tinge on the sides, Kleinschiuidt (in litt. 1906) thonght their rump 

 was lighter, Hilgert (in litt. 1906) thought their heads were deeper rufous. It is 

 curious that not one of these opinions is the same as the other, and that they in 

 two cases contradict each other. But this is not all. In 1907 (I.e.) Kleinschmidt 

 made another attempt to separate the N.W. African form, supplying it with a new 

 n&me—Lrin/us ai'iiator //'/f/z/i/rri. He then had made new discoveries: the black 

 frontal band was narrower on an average, and was sometimes absent in the 

 females, and the base of the central rectrices was "very often " white. Klein- 

 schmidt's name, however, cannot be accepted. It is true that in the skins 

 collected by Fliickiger the black frontal band is generally somewhat narrower 

 than in European specimens, but in some specimens from N.AV. Africa it is as wide 

 as in Central European ones ; it is not very rarely absent or only indicated in 

 the females ; but such birds— probably j'ounger individuals— occur also in various 

 parts of Europe. The white base to the central rectrices is of very rare 

 occurrence : it is not seen in any of our Algerian specimens (and we have at this 

 moment before us 1.5 males shot late in May and June in N.W. Africa). The 

 only exceptions are the ? from Tunis and a <S from Turin (Italy) mentioned 

 by Hartert on ]k 437 of his book. It therefore comes to this, that Algerian 

 (and other N.W. African) birds do not differ from European ones, although the 

 black frontal band is in many specimens narrower than in many European ones. 

 This one character is, in our opinion, not constant enough to justify the naming 

 of the supposed form. Kleinschmidt has not informed us how many specimens 



