NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XXV. 1918. 291 



SOME NOTES ON THE DICRURIDAE. 

 By E. C. STUART BAKER, F.L.S., F.Z.S. 



RECENTLY, when working on the Dicruridae in a collection of birds 

 collected by Mr. E. G. Herbert in 8iam, I found that in several cases 

 weU-differentiated geograpliical races were \vithout names, whilst the nomenclature 

 generally was in a very confused state. 



Altogether I have had nearly 400 skins for examination ; these including 

 the magnificent series in the British Museum, the Tring Museum, together with 

 one or two smaller private collections, and some skins from the Indian Museum. 

 The following notes are the result of my work ; but having considered these 

 birds principally from the point of view of the Indian ornithologist, I have not 

 always dealt with subspecies from some of the out-lying Islands unless the 

 decision of certain points connected with Burmese and Indian forms made their 

 examination necessary. 



Dicrurus leucophaeus Vieill. 



This species includes all those races in India and Burma wluch have been 

 generally known under the names of luiigicaudaiiis, nigrescens, cineraceus, etc. 



As regards the specific name there can, I think, be no doubt that it must 

 be leucophaeus of VieiUot {Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., nouv. ed., vol. ix. p. 587. 1817 

 [ex LevaiUant, Le Drongri, Ois. d'Afriqiie, pi. 170]). 



It is true that in the letterpress LevaiUant describes the habitat as Ceylon, 

 « liilst the bird next described — made from a skin of a Dicrurus with the under 

 plumage of a Coccystes * — is said to come from Java. In the same volume 

 LevaiUant gives a very good plate of Dicrurus coerulescens in which the much 

 darker upper parts are correctly given, and tliis would lead one to suppose that 

 the light plumage of leucophaeus is also correctly depicted. If tliis is so, then 

 leucophaeus cannot be meant for any form of Drongo from Ceylon, but it is, on 

 the other hand, an excellent representation of the Javanese Grey Drongo, show- 

 ing the short tail so typical of tliis race though the fork is exaggerated in depth. 



Levaillant's localities are notoriously untrustworthy, and in this instance 

 he seems to have given the habitat of his fictitious bii'd as Java and then trans- 

 ferred the real Javan bird to Ceylon. 



Java must therefore be held to be the type locaUty for tlus bird, wliich will 

 stand as D. leucophaeus leucopfuieus and the remaining geographical races as 

 subspecies. 



To define the different forms is a matter of no Uttle difficulty, for the keys 

 hitherto given are far from satisfactory and the characters referred to thereon 

 are not constant. Moreover the greater the amount of material available for 

 examination the less do the hitherto alleged cUfferences hold good. 



A yet further comphcation arises in the fact that in the eastern portion of 

 its range, i.e. east and south of the Brahmapootra, a dark and fight phase are 

 found as far south, at all events, as the Malay Peninsula. Even in India, west 



* Tweeddale, Ibis, 1878. p. 75. 



