320 Mr. C. B. Rickctt on Birds 



barred. The tail (which is 1 inch in length) black, feathers 

 tipped and edged with light reddish brown. Wings black, 

 some of the coverts slightly tipped and tertials broadly edged 

 with reddish brown, Irides brown. 



[It is quite possible that the case Mr. Rickett records 

 is a genuine example of hybridism. But the specimen 

 he sends me (shot in June) affords no confirmation of 

 it. It agrees exactly with the description of those shot 

 in May, but I can see no traces of L. schach in its 

 plumage, and especially in one respect, which appears to be 

 conclusive. All Shrikes which have a white alar speculum 

 seem to show it at a very early time of life. This is so in 

 L. rufus, L. collyrio, and markedly so in L. schach. But 

 this example which Mr. Rickett sends me shows no white 

 whatever; the primaries have not a trace of white base. I 

 feel sure that, whatever those seen by Mr. Rickett on May 

 18th may have been, this one, shot in June, is a young 

 L.fuscatiis of pure blood. It might, however, be well to point 

 out that Swinhoe (and, before him, Pucheran, Arch, du Mus. 

 1854-55, vii. p. 368) was inclined to look upon L. fuscatiis 

 as a melanic form of L. schach, but having found the two 

 side by side at Amoy, Hongkong, and in Hainan, Swinhoe 

 abandoned the idea. He w^as no doubt right in so doing, 

 for a common melanism is likely to occur wherever the 

 ordinary type is found, and Mr. Styan has found L. schach 

 commonly, and L. fuscatus never, in the Yangtse basin. 

 These two birds are, no doubt, like the Carrion and Hooded 

 Crows, nearly related birds which hybridize (see Ibis, 1870, 

 p. 241).— H. H. S.] 



-- Lanius sphenocercus, Cab. 



I have the skin of one dated January, and saw another 

 once when up the Yuen Fu. I had no gun with me, but 

 stalked up to within a few yards of it. 



~^ Lanius Bucephalus, T. & S. 



Two skins, dated October and January. I saw another 

 one in February. 



