FISCUS SOMALICUS 259 
Total length 8-6 inches, culmen 0:7, wing 4:0, tail 4:1, tarsus 1:0. Ujawaji, 
3 10. 12. 97 (Hawker). 
Adult female. Like the male with no chestnut on the flanks. Dadab, 
@ 15. 11. 99 (Harrison). 
Immature. Upper parts rufous tinted ashy brown inclining to white 
on the rump; quills, with the exception of the innermost one, blackish with 
the same amount of white as in the adult; tail also with the same amount 
of white as in the adult, but the dark part is browner and inclines, at its 
extremity, to pass into rufous buff; under-parts shaded with ashy brown 
across the crop and on the flanks. Bill pale horny brown; feet brown. 
The Somali Fiscal Shrike ranges over the northern half of 
Somaliland and southern Abyssinia. 
The oldest name for this species is Lanius somalicus ; this 
has generally been set’ aside upon the plea that it has not 
been sufficiently described and the types no longer exist. 
Heuglin discovered the species in the country of the Ker- 
Singeli Somali, where he preserved two specimens which he 
afterwards lost in a fight with the natives. His notes 
regarding these specimens, from which Hartlaub published the 
description of his LZ. somalicus, mentions that the tail was 
similar to that of L. minor, so evidently the outer tail-feathers 
must have been entirely white, which is not the case with 
the nearly allied L. dorsalis, and we also know that Heuglin 
visited the Berbera district, where the present species is 
abundant, and never entered the country which L. dorsalis 
is known to inhabit, so it appears to me that we have no 
right to reject the name L. somalicus for the northern 
Somali species. 
The species has representatives in the British Museum from 
Haigaisa (Delamere); Gorili, west of Egder and Bisi (Donald- 
gon Smith); Debas (Degen); Lehilla (Benett Stanford) ; 
Ujawaji (Hawker), Sheik Pass, Wagga, Berbera (Lort Phillips) ; 
Berbera (Brookman); and Dadab near Teita (Harrison), all 
in northern Somaliland and the Galla country, while there 
