224 RAGSDALE, Loggerhead and White-rumped Shrtkes. [ July 
ON THE HIATUS EXISTING BETWEEN THE BREED- 
ING RANGES OF THE LOGGERHEAD AND 
WHITE-RUMPED SHRIKES. 
BY G. H. RAGSDALE. 
Durinc the past two years I have had much correspondence on 
this subject. I was drawn into the belief that there must be a 
gap somewhere by Mr. Nehrling’s record of the breeding in 
Harris County, Texas, of the White-rumped Shrike, when I had 
never known the birds to remain through the summer in Cook 
County. 
The following observers report ‘‘no Shrikes breeding” at 
their respective stations in Texas: W. W. Westgate, Houston ; 
J. A. Singley, Giddings; R. EH. Rachford, Beaumont; Hier: 
Peters, Bonham. Although I have not detected any Shrike breed- 
ing in Cook County, and have copious notes on their departure as 
late as May, and return as early as July, I havea set of eggs taken 
in Cook County by Mr. E. C. Davis, who saw a Shrike leave the 
tree in which the nest was. These eggs agree well with a set I 
have from Colorado, Texas, three hundred miles southwest of 
Gainesville, but are larger. Mr. Benners, in the ‘ Ornithologist 
and Oologist’ (Vol. XII, p. 165), reports taking the eggs of the 
Loggerhead Shrike in the vicinity of San Antonio, Texas, but 
the specimen was evidently excubctorides. Mr. J. A. Singley 
wrote me last season that some one took the eggs of the White- 
rumped Shrike at Graham, Texas, one hundred miles west of 
Gainesville. These points I consider on or near the southeastern 
limit of breeding of Lanzus ludovictanus excubztorides, in 
Texas. 
Mr. Hardin D. Thweatt of Hickory Plain, Arkansas, while 
teaching school at West Point on Little Red River, a tributary of 
White River, Arkansas, made a record of all Shrikes seen, and 
but few were seen, and that in March, 1887. The only Louisiana 
record of breeding of the Loggerhead is from Mr. Geo. E. Beyer, 
of New Orleans. On May 13, 1888, he secured two old and 
three young, near Franklinton, Lat. 30° 52', froma pine tree near 
their nest. At Franklinton, May 15, 1887, he secured two adult 
birds, and was shown the nest in a pine tree, from which a cat 
