FURTHER ADDITIONS TO THE SINDII AVIFAUNA. 117 



2596«.— Lanius auriculatus, P. L. S. f Mull. 



This species, well figured by Buffon, P. E., pi. IX., fig. 2, and 

 the male, at any rate, correctly described by Brisson, Orn. II., 

 147, as Lanius rufus, (a name unfortunately not allowed to stand 

 by the British Association RulesJ, was confounded by Linuseua 

 in his 12th edition with Lanius collurio, so that the first 

 name available for this comparatively common European 

 Shrike is that given by Miiller in his Supplement to the Syst. 

 Nat. Later Gmelin recognized to a certain extent the dis- 

 tinctness of this species, but still only admitted it as a variety. 



When Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser published their article 

 on this species in March 1871, its range was only known to 

 them as extending to the Black Sea, but De Filippi found it 

 in Northern Persia, and Major St. John and Mr. Blanford 

 obtained it in hilly country at elevations of from 4,750 to 7,000 

 feet from June to August, at and a little to the east of Shiraz. 



Its present occurrence in Western Sindh is the more re- 

 markable, that I have not yet received it from anywhere in 

 Beloochistan, not even from the Highlands between Khelat and 

 Quetta, where it would have prima facie have appeared more 

 likely to occur than in the comparatively low parts of Western 

 Sindh, whence it has now been sent. 



The following are the dimensions taken from Mr. Murray's 

 specimen, a male : — 



Length, 7'75 inches ; wing, 4'0; tail, 3*6 ; tarsus, 0'93 ; bill 

 from frontal bone straight to tip, 0'78. 



The chin, throat, breast, and entire lower parts, a patch 

 over the nostrils, and in front of the eye on either side, a 

 spot above and behind each eye, the scapulars, the lower 

 rump and upper tail-coverts, a broad band at the base of the 

 primaries, and a narrow tipping to the tertiaries and later 

 secondaries, the outer webs of the external tail feathers, and 

 the bases and tips of all the tail feathers, white ; the white 

 tipping of the central feathers almost obsolete, and traces of 

 white tippings to the greater wing-coverts ; the middle of the 

 back ashy grey ; a broad band on the forehead, extending on 

 either side across the eyes and ear-coverts, and down the sides 

 of the neck to the interscapulary region, this latter and the 

 whole of the wings and tail, where these are not white, black ; 

 crown, occiput and nape rich chestnut; the lower parts, that 

 is to say breast and abdomen, have a very slight fulvous tinge ; 

 the axillaries are mingled grey and white, and the wing-liuino- 

 (except the tips of the greater primary lower coverts which 

 are dusky) and the basal portions of the primaries, are white. 



I have compared this specimen with one from Europe ; they 

 are identical. I have no female by me, but Macgillivray thus 

 describes her : — 



