'885. J NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 01 



BEMABKS ON LANIUS BOBUSTUS (Baird), BASED UPON AN EXAMINATION 

 OF THE TYPE SPECIMEN. 



BY LEONHARD STEJNEGER. 



In April, 1843, there was referred to the Academy, for publica- 

 tion, a paper by Dr. William Gambel, entitled " Descriptions of 

 some New and Rare Birds of the Rocky Mountains and Cali- 

 fornia," where he had been traveling at the instance of Mr. 

 Nuttall. The Committee on Publication, of which Mr. Cassin 

 was a member, recommended it, and consequently it was printed 

 in the Proceedings of that year (vol. i, pp. 259-262). 



We make at once the remark, that the Academy at that time 

 had not received specimens, as will appear from the note on page 

 258. On the contrary, the transfer of Gambel's collection was not 

 made before 1847 (of. Proc. Phila. Acad., iii, p. 346). During that 

 very year several large collections were also received and arranged 

 for exhibition by Cassin and Gambel, viz. : the Rivoli collection, 

 Boucier's collection, Wilson's collection, Cassin's collection of 

 West African birds, altogether nearly 18,500 specimens! 



The history of the specimen of Lanius, which afterwards 

 became the type of Cassin's elegans and Baird's robustus cannot 

 (from the catalogues and records of the Academy, as I am kindly 

 informed by Prof. A. Heilprin) be traced further back than 1857, 

 when it was described by Cassin in the Proceedings as L. elegans. 



It will be remarked, however, that Gambel already, in his paper 

 mentioned above, enumerates L. elegans as a bird observed by 

 him in California. But it is evident that he does not refer to any 

 particular specimen, and that the birds referred to elegans were 

 nothing but L. excubitorides. He says : " This species, of which 

 but a single specimen is known to ornithologists [viz., the type 



in the British Museum], I found abundant in California 



in the adults the breast is pure white ; in the young blended with 

 dark brown, like our common species, except the throat and vent, 

 which are white." In his later, more elaborate paper, published 

 in the same year as his collection was turned over to the Academy, 

 Gambel realizes the fact, and simply calls the species met by him 

 L. ludovicianiis with which he identifies excubitorides (Proc. 



