272 



BULLETIN 15 3, UJS^ITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Not known from Somaliland or southern Gallaland. This form is 

 larger than the nominate race (wings, 116-130 mm). 



3. Z. e. hohmi: Tanganyika Territory, north through the Kivu 

 district and Ruanda to Ankole and Masaka districts, southwestern 

 Uganda, to the Buddu Kingdom, south-central Uganda. In the 

 eastern Ituri district of the Congo (Beni) this form appears to inter- 

 grade with excubitorius. In size this subspecies is intermediate be- 

 tween excubitorius and intercedens (wings, 115-125 mm) and differs 

 from both in being darker above, less pure grayish, more earthy gray. 



4. L. e. tschadensis : Northwestern Northern Nigeria and northern 

 Cameroon to Lake Chad and to western Darfur, in the eastern part 

 of which province of the Sudan it intergrades with excubitorius. 

 This form is very similar to intercedens but slightly paler above, es- 



FiGUEB 16. — Right outermost rectrix of Lanius excubitorius intercedens showing variation. 



pecially on the forehead and crown. Of this form I have seen no 

 material and therefore can not judge its validity. Neumann admits 

 that "the difference between tschadensis and the race from the White 

 Nile * * * jg very slight, and I should have hesitated naming 

 it, if it had not come from the limit of the range and been still 

 somewhat paler than the race from the White Nile and eastern 

 Sudan." 



All the 10 birds listed above are in worn plumage. The extent 

 and shape of the black subterminal mark on the outermost rectrices 

 are very variable. A few of them are indicated in the diagram 

 (fig. IG). There seems to be no correlation between this variation 

 and sex or age. The size variations are shown in table 53. 



This shrike lives in the thorny scrub of the semiarid acacia savan- 

 nahs, where it goes about in small bands of from 5 to 15 individuals, 



