222 Viscount Walden on the Rufous-tailed Shrikes. 



refers to the Malay race, and has the right of priority. He has 

 given a detailed description of the male and the female. If it 

 be eventually shown that Java is inhabited by an allied form yet 

 specifically distinct from the Malay type, it will have to take 

 the title of L. ferox, Drap., and not that of L. tigrinus of the 

 same author. L. ferox, Drap., is described {I. c.) as measuring 

 seven inches in length, whereas L. tigrinus, Drap., usually 

 regarded as a synonym of L. magnirostris, Less., is said by its 

 author to measure ten inches and a half. Letting alone the fact 

 that in the same article on the Shrikes Drapiez described these two 

 birds as distinct species, the large dimensions of his L. tigrinus 

 are sufficient to stamp the species as distinct from L. ferox. At 

 the same „time I am unable, from the description, to identify 

 L. tigrinus-, it is possibly a young L. cristatus, Linn., from the 

 continent. Bonaparte (/. c.) makes tigrinus the male, and/eroa; 

 the female. But the sexes in the Malay bird are of equal 

 dimensions, and no true Lanius is known in which there is a 

 difference of three and a half inches between the sexes. The 

 description of L. ferox, taken along with its small size, clearly 

 refers to the female or young male of the Malay bird, or, if it 

 does there occur, to its Java representative. 



Lanius crassirostris, Kuhl, is introduced, without description, 

 in the ' Conspectus ' as a distinct species from Java. Three 

 years later the Prince fully described the male and female in his 

 ' Monographie des Laniens •' and the specific characters there 

 given apply in every respect to the Malay bird. Moreover, 

 although permitting Kuhl's manuscript title to be retained, the 

 Prince identified his species with L. magnirostris. Less., L. ferox 

 and L. tigrinus, Drap., L. strigatus, Eyton, and L. crassirostris, 

 V. Hasselt, all titles possessing priority over the designation 

 adopted by the Prince*. The L. crassirostris (v. Hasselt) of 



* The carelessness of this great ornithologist is curiously illustrated in 

 his Monograph by the notes of exclamation he inserts after quoting Dr. 

 Cabanis. In the * Museum Heineanun ' that author included the rufous- 

 tailed Shrikes in Boie's genus Enneoctoims. This excites the Prince's 

 astonishment, and he gives expression to his amazement by his usual 

 notes of exclamation. Yet in the ' Conspectus,' published at about the 

 same time, it will be seen that the Prince himself included all the rufous 

 Shrikes under Enneoctonus, 



