516 BULLETIN 186, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



An adult female had the irides dark brown; the bill light blue, 

 with extreme tip black ; the feet and toes plumbeous ; the claws slaty. 



The adult of either sex has the lores black ; the rest of the head and 

 neck (including the chin and throat) slaty gray, changing on the nape 

 to the dark vinaceous-brown of the remaining upperparts; the longer 

 upper tail coverts white or smoky gray; the wings slaty gray; the 

 rectrices blackish slate, narrowly tipped with white or smoky gray? 

 the remaining underparts light vinaceous-brown, paling posteriorly 

 and often becoming vinaceous-white on the under tail coverts; the 

 lining of the underwing ashy gray. With wear the vinaceous color- 

 ing changes to a dull rufous-brown. Juveniles are similar to the 

 adults but have the feathers of the upperparts brownish and narrowly 

 fringed on the mantle with ruf escent-white ; the upper wing coverts 

 narrowly tipped with pale rufous and the remiges similarly tipped 

 with white; the underparts pale rufous, the feathers of the breast 

 with faint, dusky cross bars. 



Family LANIIDAE 



LANIUS SCHACH TRICOLOR Hodgson 



Himalayan Black-headed Shrike 



[Lanius] Tricolor Hodgson, India Rev., vol. 1, 1837 [=1836], p. 446 (no locality 



given == Nepal). 

 Lanius nigriceps nigriceps, Deignan, Journ. Siam Soc. Nat. Hist. Suppl., 1931, p. 



145 (Chiang Mai) ; 1936, p. 122 (Chiang Mai). — de Schauensee, Proc. Acad. 



Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1934, p. 221 (Chiang Mai).— Gbeenway, Bull. Mus. 



Comp. Zool., 1940, p. 186 (Doi Ang Ka). 



The black-headed shrike is fairly common on the Chiang Mai plain 

 at all seasons except during the period between March 3 (1931) and 

 July 13 (1935) ;then it is presumably breeding at extensive deforested 

 areas on our higher mountains, for I found it numerous, April and May 

 1931, in the open valley below Pha Mon on Doi Ang Ka, and Griswold 

 (Asiatic Primate Expedition) took two females there at 4,300 feet, 

 March 3 and 9, 1937. It is otherwise known from our provinces only 

 by specimens which I collected at Chiang Saen Kao, January 13 and 

 15, 1937, and by a single straggler observed on Doi Suthep, 3,300 feet, 

 February 13, 1937. 



At Chiang Mai, this large shrike is a bird of the cultivated districts 

 but usually keeps to such wastelands as cremation grounds and the 

 vicinity of ruined phrachedi, where dense thickets of bamboo and 

 thorny shrubs afford it suitable habitat; when vegetation of this type 

 grows near a highway, a telegraph wire is often utilized as a perch. 

 Stomachs examined by me have contained ants, beetles, flies, and grass- 

 hoppers, but small birds and rodents are probably taken as well. Prey 

 too large to be swallowed on the spot or at the lookout post is carried 



