PALLAS'S GREY SHRIKE. 595 



LANIUS MAJOR. 

 PALLAS'S GEEY SHRIKE. 



Lanius major, Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat. i. p. 401 (1826) ; et auctorum pluri- 

 morum — Cahanis, Taczanowski, Brandt, Aleves, Meinhardt, Collet, Schaloiv, See- 

 bohm, &c. 



Lanius excubitor, var. major, Pall., Radde, Reis. Siid. Ost-Sibir. ii. p. 274 (1863). 



Lanius borealis europeeus et Lanius borealis sibiricus, Bocjdanow, Monogr. Russian 

 Shrikes and their Allies, p. 10:? (1881). 



Lanius excubitor, Linn., juv., auctorum multorum— J3resser, Skarpe, Neu'ton, &c. 



Pallas's Grey Shrike is as distinct from the Great Grey Shrike as the 

 Carrion-Grow is from the Hooded Crow. Its distinctness is recognized 

 by nearly all modern continental ornithologists. In both cases the allied 

 species interbreed where their geographical ranges meet ; and the existence 

 of intermediate forms has caused some ornithologists to consider them in 

 each case only subspecifically distinct ; and if wc are to attach any definite 

 meaning to the word species, this is unquestionably the fact. The correct 

 scientific name of Pallas's Grey Shrike is Lanius excubitor, var. major, as 

 that of the Hooded Crow is Corvus corone, var. comix ; but there is no 

 harm in using the binomial name for the sake of brevity, so long as the 

 fact that it is only a contraction of the correct name is not forgotten. 

 It is difficult to explain the perversity of British ornithologists in per- 

 sisting to ignore the differences between these two Grey Shrikes. Sharpe 

 and Dresser state that the young of the Great Grey Shrike has only one 

 wing-bar ; but in their description of the young bird they do not allude to 

 this faetj which is probably a pure myth. In Dresser's collection is a 

 skin of a nestlinrj of a Great Grey Shrike from Baden, in which the white 

 at the base of the secondaries is as much developed as in typical skins 

 of fully adult birds; and similar examples are in the British Museum. 

 Newton quotes Sharpe and Dresser without venturing to correct their 

 blunder, but betrays a suspicion of the unreliable nature of their state- 

 ments by saying that young birds often have the double white spot on 

 the wing feebly developed. It seems very extraordinary that none of 

 these writers should have discovered that the Grey Shrikes with only one 

 wing-bar, which are found in England, Scotland, and various parts of 

 Europe, were nothiag more or less than Pallas's Grey Shrike. 



This Shrike, like so many other Siberian birds^ is an accidental visitor 

 to West Europe, but one which has occurred so frequently that it may 

 almost be looked upon as a regular through rare straggler. It is very 

 likely that many of these Siberian species breed in Europe, in the valleys 

 of the Upper Petchora and the Kama^ districts of the ornithology of which 



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