GREAT CINEREOUS SHRIKE. 493 



Male. — The Great Cinereous Shrike, although not gaudily 

 coloured, is one of the most beautiful of its genus. It is about 

 the size of the Fieldfare or Blackbird, and is of a rather robust 

 form, having the body moderately full, the neck short, the head 

 very large, ovate, and rather flattened above. The bill is 

 rather short, very stout, high, compressed towards the end, 

 the upper outline convex, towards the end decurved, the notch 

 large, the dentiform process prominent, the tip acute and com- 

 pressed ; the lower mandible nearly straight, its dorsal outline 

 convex and ascending, its tip ascending, small, with a sinus in 

 the margins. The roof of the mouth is nearly flat, with two 

 longitudinal papillate ridges, and an anterior median ridge ; 

 the posterior aperture of the nares oblong, with an anterior 

 slit. The tongue, Plate XXII, Fig. 1, a, slender, seven-twelfths 

 long, sagittate and papillate at the base, concave above, horny 

 toward the end, with the margins lacerated, and the tip slit. 

 The oesophagus, h c cl, is two inches nine and a half twelfths 

 long, from four and a half twelfths to three-twelfths in width ; 

 the proventriculus, c d, five-twelfths in breadth, its oblong glan- 

 dules forming a belt four-twelfths in breadth. The stomach, 

 de/, is a gizzard of considerable power, broadly elliptical, an 

 inch long when distended ; its muscular coat rather thin, on the 

 right side thicker ; the epithelium dense, thin, longitudinally 

 rugous, and dull yellowish-red. The intestine, y^ /^ /, is eleven 

 and a half inches long, from three-twelfths to a twelfth and a 

 half in width ; the coeca, j, two-twelfths long, and about half a 

 twelfth in width ; the rectum one inch long, enlarged into an 

 oblonCT cloaca, k I. The risrht lobe of the liver is much larger 

 than the left. The heart is very large, being eight and a half 

 twelfths long, or equal to one-third of the whole length of the 

 cavity of the thorax and abdomen. The trachea, 7n n, which 

 is two inches long, and two-twelfths in breadth at the upper 

 part, has sixty rings, of which the last two are dimidiate ; 

 the bronchial half-rings, o, fifteen. The muscles are precisely 

 as in the Thrushes, there being four distinct pairs on the 

 inferior larynx. The nostrils basal, rather small, roundish, 

 or broadly elliptical, concealed by the feathers ; the eyes 

 rather large, their aperture measuring nearly three-twelfths 

 of an inch in length ; that of the ears also large, its diameter 



