VIL LANIIDAE 531 
long, pointed, and slightly curved, with wide gape. The meta- 
tarsi are short and strong; the wings are much elongated; the 
tail is short and occasionally emarginate, with soft, exserted 
shafts to the rectrices in Psewdochelidon, which is glossy greenish- 
black with red beak and feet. -Artamus, where powder-down 
patches occur on the sides, thighs, and lower back, exhibits black, 
brown, rufous, or grey tints, relieved by white—especially below, or 
towards the tip of the tail; the bill is blue with black extremity, 
the feet are greyish. The sexes hardly differ. 
These woodland birds often float nearly motionless in the atr, 
occasionally moving ahead with a few strokes of the wing ;' at other 
times they wheel and twist about like Swifts. They hawk for insects, 
or sally after them from their perches, feeding also upon the ground, 
on the larvae and on seeds. Congregating like Swallows, they have 
in Australia a curious habit of hanging in ball-like masses from 
the branches; the note is plaintive or chirping. ‘The nests, often 
found in close proximity, are placed in forks of trees, on their side- 
shoots, in holes, behind loose bark, in deserted habitations of other 
birds, or in bushes; the outer materials being twigs and grass, 
those of the lining fibres and feathers. From two to four white, 
greenish, or flesh-coloured eggs are deposited, spotted and streaked 
with umber, red-brown, grey, lilac, or occasionally black. 
Fam. XVI. Laniidae——Few Families are more difficult to 
define than this. A typical Shrike is easily recognised ; but such 
forms as Pachycephala and Hemipus are closely connected with 
the Muscicapidae ; Calicalicus and Neolestes with the Pycnonotidae ; 
Gymnorhina and its allies with the Corvidae ; while some authors 
include the Campephagidae. Dr. Gadow! recognises five Sub- 
famihes: (1) Gymnorhininae, (2) Malaconotinae, (3) Pachycepha- 
linae, (4) Laniinae, and (5) Vireoninae ; but the last-named is here 
allowed Family rank, while Prionopinae is admitted in its place. 
The bill is stout, notched, and often strongly hooked, while 
it is either curved or straight; im Falcunculus it 1s more than 
usually compressed, in Aectes the maxilla has the edge finely 
serrated, in enopirostris the mandible is upcurved, leaving a 
distinct gap above it. In the Gymnorhininae the culmen is 
long, straight, and slightly rounded, with sht-like nostrils near 
1 Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. viii. 1883, p. 89. The Gymnorhininae belong to the group 
Austro-coraces or Noto-coracomorphae, if such be admitted ; 7.e. to the apparently 
generalized forms whence the Corvidae(p.557)and perhaps the Laniidae, have sprung. 
