Shrikes 



725 



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FIG. 204. Vanga or Hook-billed Shrike, Vanga curvirostris. 



their anatomy and probable kinship. A typical Shrike is easy enough to recog- 

 nize and define, but there are so many outlying forms connected by a more or 

 less pronounced gradation of characters that it is extremely difficult to draw 

 any wholly satisfactory circumscribing line. Dr. Gadow, who monographed the 

 group for the " Catalogue of Birds," makes it include five subfamilies, among them 

 the Vireos ( Vireonidce), which have long been accorded full family rank and are 

 much more akin to the Swallows and Waxwings than the Shrikes. Mr. Gates, 



