FISCUS NUBICUS 245 
The Nubian Fiscal Shrike ranges from Senegal and the 
Lake Chad region eastwards to the neighbourhood of Lake 
Rudolf, and thence north through the Soudan and Abyssinia 
to Egypt and Western Asia as far as Persia, Asia Minor and 
Cyprus, where it is a common summer visitor according to 
Bucknill. It is said to have occurred in Greece. 
In West Africa it must be rare. Hartlaub mentions it in 
1857 as forming part of Verreaux’s collection from Casamanse, 
and there is a specimen in the British Museum from Senegal 
from Bouvier’s collection; Boyd Alexander collected a male 
at Damakuldia, near Lake Chad, on October 25, 1904. 
The species is most plentiful in North Hast Africa. Peth- 
erick procured it in Kordofan. Mr. A. L. Butler writes from 
Sudan: ‘‘The Nubian Shrike is fairly common. It appears 
to be partly resident and parlty migratory. It is compara- 
tively seldom seen in the hot weather, the majority travelling 
down the Nile to Egypt in February and March. I have not 
seen a nest, but it breeds here in the winter. My Khartum 
specimen, shot on October 20, is very young, and Messrs. 
Rothschild and Wollaston noticed young birds at Shendi in 
February and March. With habits very like those of the 
Woodchat, it is a great frequenter of gardens and groves of 
shady trees, and is much more often found in these than in 
the open bush.” Mr. Butler also found this species common 
at Suakim and the neighbourhood in March, but did not meet 
with it in the Bahr el Ghazal. 
There can be no doubt that the greater number of the 
Masked Shrikes in North-East Africa are only there during 
the winter, and there is no definite evidence that any birds 
breed except Butler’s remark quoted above. In the Province 
of Giza in Egypt it is stated by Nicoll to be a common 
species in the spring migration, but less so in autumn. This 
is confirmed by an examination of the dated examples from 
June, 1912, 17 
