234 UROLESTES MELANOLEUCUS 
seeks a place of safety.” Andersson obtained specimens at 
Ondonga and Ovanquenyama, but did not meet with the 
species further south than the central part of Damaraland. 
Fleck records it from southern Damaraland and the Kala- 
hari, and Mr. Oscar Neumann remarks that two of these 
specimens have no brown shade on the breast, and proposes 
the name of U. melanoleucus damarensis for them. 
Sir Andrew Smith discovered the species at the Orange 
River, where, according to Lieutenant Whitehead, it is not 
common, and from Cape Colony it has been mentioned only 
by Layard, who writes: ‘‘ We have received several specimens 
from Colesberg.” 
The species is apparently very rare in Natal; but from 
Zululand the Brothers Woodward write (Ibis, 1898, p. 226) : 
“We found several pairs of the Magpie-Shrike (U. melano- 
lewcus) nesting in the thorn-trees, and secured their eggs— 
round, pinkish-white, dotted with brown and purple. ‘These 
birds keep up a loud and rather harsh whistling.” 
Claude Grant also found this bird in Zululand near 
Umfolosi station, and at Klein Letaba in the bush-veld of 
north-eastern Transvaal. He states that it was called Tyuma 
by the Zulus and Chilauli by the Shangaans, and writes as 
follows: “I have observed it only singly or in pairs, and it 
frequents the tops of trees or thorn-bushes, whence it catches 
its prey, which consists of insects, such as grasshoppers, 
usually on the ground. It has a strong, somewhat dipping 
flight, and the call, constantly repeated, is loud and rather 
harsh, and is best interpreted by the Shangaan native name. 
Mr. T. Ayres writes (Ibis, 1882, p. 261): “A rather 
common species throughout the bush-veld from Rustenburg 
into the Mashona country, where, on October 8, we found it 
breeding. The nest was placed amongst the outer boughs of 
a low thorn-tree some eight feet from the ground and was 
