PALLAS’S GREY SURIKE. 595 
LANIUS MAJOR. 
PALLAS’S GREY SHRIKE. 
Lanius major, Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat. i. p. 401 (1826); et auctorum pluri- 
morum—Cabanis, Taczanowski, Brandt, Meves, Reinhardt, Collet, Schalow, See- 
bohm, &e. 
Lanius excubitor, var. major, Pall., Radde, Reis. Siid. Ost-Sibir. ii. p- 274 (1863). 
Lanius borealis europeus e¢ Lanius borealis sibiricus, Bogdanow, Monogr, Russian 
Shrikes and their Allies, p. 102 (1881). 
Lanius excubitor, Linn., juy., auctorum multorum— Dresser, Sharpe, Newton, &c. 
Pallas’s Grey Shrike is as distinct from the Great Grey Shrike as the 
Carrion-Crow is from the Hooded Crow. Its distinctness is recognized 
by nearly all modern continental ornithologists. In both cases the allied 
species interbreed where their geographical ranges meet ; and the existence 
of intermediate forms has caused some ornithologists to consider them in 
each case only subspecifically distinct ; and if we are to attach any definite 
meaning to the word species, this is unquestionably the fact. The correct 
scientific name of Pallas’s Grey Shrike is Lanius excubitor, var. major, as 
that of the Hooded Crow is Corvus corone, var. cornix; but there is no 
harm in using the binomial name for the sake of brevity, so long as the 
fact that it is only a contraction of the correct name is not forgotten. 
It is difficult to explain the perversity of British ornithologists in per- 
sisting to ignore the differences between these two Grey Shrikes. Sharpe 
and Dresser state that the young of the Great Grey Shrike has only one 
wing-bar; but in their description of the young bird they do not allude to, 
this fact, which is probably a pure myth. In Dresser’s collection is a 
skin of a nestling of a Great Grey Shrike from Baden, in which the white 
at the base of the secondaries is as much developed as in typical skins 
of fully adult birds; and similar examples are in the British Museum. 
Newton quotes Sharpe and Dresser without venturing to correct their 
blunder, but betrays a suspicion of the unreliable nature of their state- 
ments by saying that young birds often have the double white spot on 
the wing feebly developed. It seems very extraordinary that none of 
these writers should have discovered that the Grey Shrikes with only one 
wing-bar, which are found in England, Scotland, and various parts of 
Europe, were nothing more or less than Pallas’s Grey Shrike. 
This Shrike, like so many other Siberian birds, is an accidental visitor 
to West Europe, but one which has occurred so frequently that it may 
almost be looked upon as a regular through rare straggler. It is very 
likely that many of these Siberian species breed in Europe, in the valleys 
of the Upper Petchora and the Kama, districts of the ornithology of which 
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