400 Canoa Tristram on the Eighth Volume 



no description given of the female, whieli is strikingly distinct 

 from that of any other of the group. 



We do not understand why P. xanthetraea is changed into 

 xantherythrcBa, unless it be that the writer was not aware 

 of the derivation, which is from rjrpov, the belly, and has no 

 connection with ipv6p6<;, as he seems to have supposed. It 

 is also curious to have P. grisola described from an Andaman- 

 Island specimen^ and three Burmese specimens quoted, while 

 the habitat is given as Java, Sumatra, N.W. Borneo. 



On the genus Lanius there is much less room for criticism. 

 We think we detect Mr. Seebohm^s guiding hand, and we 

 cannot complain of '' lumping " here, excepting in one or two 

 cases. The writer who could separate L. fallax and L. 

 eleyans ought to have been able to recognize L. excubitoroides 

 from L. ludovicianus. The division into species seems carried 

 to its utmost limits, when, e. g., we find L. mollis granted full 

 specific rank on the strength of tail-coverts ^'^ sandy"^buff " 

 instead of " creamy greyish white " ! ! and the microscopic 

 distinction between L. homeyeri and L. leucopterus admitted. 

 It is also admitted that in Turkestan the two species (?) inter- 

 breed. But it is when we reach the six species L. fallax, assi- 

 milis, hemileucurus, grimmi, dealbatus, and elegans that the 

 genius of splitting has reached its fullest development. On L. 

 elegans we may observe that the only specimens, excepting 

 the type, presented to the British Museum by the Hudson-Bay 

 Company were all procured by ourselves. The type may be 

 dismissed by common consent, since, not being L. ludovi- 

 cianus, there must be some error in assigning it to the fur- 

 countries. Our specimens, though attributed to Algeria and 

 Tunis in the Catalogue, do not come from Cisatlantic Algeria 

 or Tunis, but from the oases of the M^zab country in the 

 Sahara. They were all shot by myself, except one by Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, Jun., during his visit to theM^zab in 1870. But in the 

 same oases I shot, together with the previous specimens, several 

 birds which are now decided to be L. hemileucurus. All my spe- 

 cimens of the latter oxe female, of the former male, and no other 

 Shrike has been met with in the district. It is important to 

 remember that no grey Shrike, except L. algeriensis, occurs 



