THE BIRDS OF NORTHERN THAILAND 517 



to some thorny bush and there impaled upon a spine to facilitate 

 butchering and eating. I have found no cases of impalement for 

 storage but this habit is not likely to appear outside the breeding 

 period, at which season the bird is not readily observable in Thailand. 



It is perhaps noteworthy that, of the 11 specimens so far taken by 

 various collectors in our provinces, all have been adult or subadult 

 females. The small series before me fails to clarify the picture of the 

 molts : one taken at Chiang Mai, August 29, has evidently completed 

 postjuvenal molt but retains scattered juvenal feathers on the crown 

 and mantle and the worn brownish remiges and rectrices of imma- 

 turity ; the two January examples from Chiang Saen are similar but 

 have the head and mantle colored as in the adult. A bird from Chiang 

 Mai, November 23, is in molt, having still to lose the brownish outer 

 secondaries and having the outer pairs of fresh rectrices not yet fully 

 grown. 



Two females had the irides dark brown ; the bill black, with the base 

 of the mandible dusky flesh or light horny brown ; the feet and toes 

 brownish black or dark brown; the soles light brownish; the claws 

 black. Breeding individuals are said to have the bill wholly black. 



The adult has the entire upper half of the head and neck black ; the 

 mantle rufous, suffused with ashy next to the black nape and with 

 chestnut on the upper tail coverts ; the wings black, the inner primaries 

 with the basal portion of the outer web white, to form a conspicuous 

 patch, the secondaries narrowly edged along the outer web with dull, 

 pale rufous ; the rectrices black, all narrowly tipped and the two outer- 

 most pairs also outwardly edged, with dull, pale rufous; the under- 

 parts white, changing along the flanks and on the under tail coverts to 

 buffy rufous. Birds in the barred juvenal dress have not yet been 

 found in northern Thailand and would be, in any case, highly difficult 

 to distinguish from similar examples of Lanius c. collurioides. 



Thai specimens of the black-headed shrike differ in no important 

 particular from topotypes of Hodgson's tricolor. 



I find no evidence of integradation between tricolor and schom- 

 ourghi and, in fact, one may doubt whether the ranges of the two forms 

 meet at any point : whereas, in Thailand, the former is recorded only 

 from the provinces of Chiang Mai and Chiang Eai, the latter (a well- 

 marked resident race) seems to be restricted to the Great Plain of 

 Central Thailand, where it is known to occur no farther north than the 

 neighborhood of Sawankhalok. 



LANIUS SCHACH SCHACH Linnaeus 



Chinese Gray-headed Shrike 



[Lanius] Schach Linnaeus, Systema naturae, ed. 10, vol. 1, 1758, p. 94 (China; 

 type locality here restricted to Canton) . 



