306 LANIIDJE. 



Ho undraw river in Tenasserim, I found this species, in June 1878, 

 veay common. They were then breeding, and I found several 

 nests, all, however, unfinished ; these were, in material and make, 

 very like the nests of P. inornata which I had taken years ago in 

 India." 



The eggs of this species recall in many respects those of P. in- 

 ornata, but the ground-colour is much more variable, and the 

 markings are more blotchy and less intricate in shape. They are 

 pretty regular ovals, and while some are very glossy others exhibit 

 but little of this. The ground-colour is perhaps typically pale 

 greenish blue, but in a great many specimens this is more or less 

 obliterated by a reddish or pinkish tinge, as if the colour of the 

 markings had run ; in some the ground is a sort of reddish olive, 

 in some pinky white. The markings are large blotches and spots, 

 often forming zones or caps about the larger end, where they seem 

 almost always to be most conspicuous, as they vary in colour from 

 an intense burnt-sienna which is almost black, through a dingy 

 maroon, and again to a dull, somewhat pale reddish brown ; here 

 and there individual eggs exhibit a hair-line or two, or a hiero- 

 glyphic-like mark, but these are the exceptions. 



The eggs vary in length from 0*53 to 0-64 inch, and in breadth 

 from O42 to 0*45 ; but the average of fourteen eggs is O58 

 by 0-44. 



Very constantly smears or clouds of a paler shade than the 

 blotches cover large portions of the surface between these. Occa- 

 sionally all the markings are smeared and ill-defined, and in some 

 eggs they are almost entirely wanting, and nothing but a scratch 

 or two about the large end is to be seen. 



Family LANIID.E. 



Subfamily LANIIN^E. 



469. Lanius lahtora (Sykes). The Indian Grey Shrike. 



Lamus lahtora (Sykes), Jerd. B. 2nd. i, p. 400. 



Collyrio lahtora, Sykes, Hume, Rough Draft N. fy E. no. 256. 



The Indian Grey Shrike lays from January to August, and 

 occasionally up to October, but the majority of my eggs have been 

 obtained during March or April. 



It builds, generally, a very compact and heavy, deep, cup-shaped 

 nest, which it places at heights of from 4 to 10 or 12 feet from the 

 ground in a fork, towards the centre of some densely growing 

 thorny bush or moderate-sized tree, the various carounders, capers, 

 plums, and acacias being those most commonly selected. 



As a rule it builds a new nest every year, but it not unfre- 



