CAMPEPHAGHNJi. 413 



in uniting them. Himalayan birds certainly have the back gene- 

 rally of a duller brown than Southern specimens, which also appear 

 to be a trifle larger. 



The Little Pied Shrike is found from the Himalayas to the Neil- 

 gherries, in the forests of Central India and all along the crest of 

 the Western Ghats. It is generally seen in small parties of five 

 or six, wandering about from tree to tree, every now and then 

 darting on insects in the air. It has a pleasing little song, not often 

 heard however. On the Neilgherries I found it up to 7,500 feet. 

 At Darjeeling rarely higher than 5,000 feet or so. I obtained its 

 nest once at Darjeeling, made of roots and grasses, with three 

 greenish-white eggs, having a few rusty-red spots. 



Hemipus obscvriis, Horsf. (liiriindinaceus of Temm.), from Java, 

 has a much stronger and more Shrike-like bill, and was separated 

 from Tephrodornis as Cabanisia, Bonap. ; but our species he retains 

 as Hemipus^ and keeps it among the Flycatchers, as Horsfield 

 and Gray do. 



Sub.-fam. Campephagin^e, Cuckoo-Shrikes. 



Char. — Bill of moderate length, or rather short, rather deep 

 vertically, broadish at base ; culmen arched or curved; rictal bristles 

 few, feeble ; nostrils basal, in a fossa, partially covered by short 

 plumules ; wings of moderate length ; 3rd and 4th, or 4th and 5th, 

 quills sub-equal and longest ; tail rather loug, rounded, or gradu- 

 ated ; feathers of the back and rump often rigid ; tarsus short ; 

 feet weak or moderate. Peculiar to the Old World. 



Gray, indeed, inserts one or two American genera in this 

 family ; but these apparently are true Ampelidts. 



The birds of this family have been placed by Gray next to the 

 Dicrurince in his Ampelidte, and Blyth places his Go'aucalidce (and the 

 genus Pericrocotus following it) next to the AmpelidcB. Van Hoeven 

 places them in his Muscicapida, between some true Flycatchers 

 and some undoubted Ampelidce. Swainson and Horsfield class 

 them as a family of the Shrikes, and I without hesitation follow 

 them. Their almost entirely insectivorous diet, strong bill, and 

 general structure, concur in placing them here ; but as a somewhat 

 aberrant family, and some of them have undoubted affinities for the 



