Lanius excubitor and its Allies. S77 



tioiis by which it can be separated from the latter, from 

 which it differs merely in having more white in the plumage. 



Lanius leucopterus [L. przewalskii, Bogd.) is a very white 

 form of Lanius excubitor having the two alar bars very large 

 and confluent. Its forehead and a broad superciliary stripe 

 are also pure white, as are the lower rump and upper tail- 

 coverts, and the three outer tail-feathers are almost entirely 

 white ; in some of the secondaries the inner web is pure 

 white, this being the only constant character I can find- to 

 distinguish this species. Lanius leucopterus inhabits, so far 

 as I can ascertain, the southern portion of Central Siberia 

 and Turkestan. 



Throughout Northern Siberia Lanius excubitor is replaced 

 by Lanius major, Pall. This form, when we wrote our article 

 on the Grey Shrikes in 1870 (P. Z. S. 1870, p. 592), Dr. 

 Bowdler Sharpe and I suggested would ultimately prove to be 

 coiispecific Avith Lanius borealis, and now, after a comparison 

 of the series in the British Museum and my own collection, I 

 cannot find any character by which the birds from Siberia 

 and North America can be separated. Both species are as a 

 rule tinged with tawny brown,but some, though comparatively 

 few, specimens are nearly as grey as Lanius excubitor. 



As a rule the American birds are more frequently tinged 

 with brown than those from Siberia, but there are in the 

 British Museum specimens from America quite as grey as any 

 of those from Siberia. This species has the underparts dis- 

 tinctly barred with narrow transverse vermiculations, and 

 has but one alar bar, though in one specimen from the 

 Baikal district in my own collection there is a slight indica- 

 tion of a second alar bar on one wing. Prof. Bogdanoff also 

 remarks (/. s. c.) that some Siberian specimens have a second 

 alar bar, whereas others have but a single bar, but that in all 

 Siberian birds which have the second bar it is smaller than 

 in European examples and is almost hidden by the larger 

 coverts. He further adds that the colour of the rump and 

 the amount of white on the tail are extremely variable, 

 that in only one specimen examined was the outer rectrix 

 entirely white, and that the only characters by which the 



