FISCUS HUMERALIS 249 
sometimes when no other suitable spot is available, it will 
hang its victims by the neck from the narrow fork of a tree. 
Its flight is very characteristic, low, undulating, straight, and, 
as a rule, not prolonged. This Shrike has a fairly sweet song, 
to which it gives vent both in the breeding season and at 
other times; but, as a rule, its note is a harsh squawk.” 
It breeds often as early as August in the western part of 
Cape Colony. 
Claude Grant, who collected a good series of this species 
at Port Nolloth and Klipfontein, in Namaqualand, in the 
neighbourhood of Cape Town and at Plettenberg Bay, took 
a nest containing three eggs on September 24, near Cape 
Town; it was composed of twigs of a common herbaceous 
plant, interspersed with rag and string, and lined with fine 
grass and fibre; it was placed in the fork of an apple tree in 
an orchard, at about 12 ft. above the ground. 
Fiscus humeralis. 
Lanius humeralis Stanley, in Salt’s Trav. App. pp. li. and xlv. (1814) 
Chelicut, Abyssinia; Ogilvie-Grant, Nov. Zool., 1902, p. 466; 
Reichen. Vog. Afr. ii. p. 609 (1903), iii, p. 834 (1905); Ogilvie- 
Grant, Ibis, 1904, p. 267 S. Abyssinia; Erlanger, J. f. O. 1905, 
p. 700 N.EZ. Afr.; Swynnerton, Ibis, 1908, p. 46 Gazaland ; Ogilvie- 
Grant, Trans. Zool. Soc. xix. p. 345 (1910) Ruwenzor: ; Bannerman, 
Ibis, 1910, p. 689 Somaliland. 
Lanius collarig humeralis, Hartert, Nov. Zool., 1902, p. 621 Kikuyu ; 
Neumann, J. f. O. 1905, p. 227 Shoa; Schiebel, J. f. O. 1906, p. 186, 
pls. G. H.; Zedlitz, J. f. O. 1910, p. 802 Hritvea; Swynnerton, 
J. S. Afr. Orn. Union, 1911, p. 10 Gazaland ; W. Sclater, Ibis, 1911, 
p. 283 Transvaal. 
Fiscus humeralis, Oates, Cat. B. Eggs, B. M. iv. p. 282, pl. xii. (1908) ; 
Jackson, Ibis, 1906, p. 550 Toro. 
Lanius fiscus, Cat. Mus. Hein. i. p. 74 (1850) Abyssinia. 
Lanius arnaudi, Bp. Rev. Mag. Zool., 1853, p. 434. 
Lanius pyrrhostictus, Holub and Pelzeln, S. Afr. p. 97, pl. ii. (1882) 
Transvaal. 
