250 
BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
An allied species is X. erythronotus from India. In this bird both the 
back and rump are rufous. L. schach from China is like L. erythronotus 
in coloration, but the frontal black band is very wide indeed and the back 
is intensely rufous. 
The Grey-backed Shrike is said by Mr. Blyth to have occurred in Arra- 
kan, and Mr. Davison procured one specimen at Kyouknyat in the north of 
Tenasserim. 
It extends into China and is found in the Indo-Burmese countries and 
over a great portion of Northern India. It breeds in the Himalayas at 
considerable heights as far west as the Sutlej valley, and in the winter it 
descends to the lower ranges of the Himalayas and to the plains. 
238. LANIUS COLLURIOIDES. 
THE BURMESE SHRIKE. 
Lanius coUurioides, Less. Voy. Belang. p. 250 ; Wald. Ibis, 1867, p. 220 ; Bl. B. 
Burm. p, 122 ; Armstrong, S. F. iv. p. 316 ; Anders. Yunnan E.iyed. p. 646 ; Hume 
^ Dav. S. F. vi. p. 203 ; Hume, S. F. viii. p. 91 ; Bingham, S. F. ix. p. 171; Oates, 
S. F. X. p. 199. Lanius hypoleucos, Bl. J. A. S. B. xvii. p. 249 ; Hmne, S. F. 
iii. p. 90. 
Description. — Male and female. Forehead, lores, ear-coverts and round 
the eyes blackish ; crown, nape and sides of the neck dark ashy ; back, 
rump, scapulars and upper tail-coverts chestnut ; wing-coverts brown, 
edged with ferruginous ; tertiaries the same ; primaries and secondaries 
dark brown, narrowly edged on the outer webs with whitish ; the inner 
webs of all white at the base ; the fifth to tenth primaries also with a white 
spot on the outer web near the base ; the outermost pair of tail-feathers 
white with black shafts ; the next white with a large black patch on the 
inner web ; the others black tipped with white ; under wing-coverts mixed 
black and white. 
Iris pale reddish brown ; eyelids plumbeous ; bill black, the gape and the 
greater portion of the lower mandible flesh-colour ; mouth flesh-colour ; 
legs plumbeous ; claws horn-colour. 
Length 8 inches, tail 4, wing 3'5, tarsus 1, bill from gape '8. The fe- 
male is of about the same size. 
L. vittatus from India is somewhat allied to this species ; it has the 
forehead black, the head grey and the back maroon. 
The Burmese Shrike is generally distributed over the Pegu Division. I 
found it very abundant in the Thayetmyo and Prome districts. I observed 
it, but not so commonly, in Southern Pegu, about the towns of Pegu and 
Kyeikpadein. Both Dr. Armstrong and Capt. Wardlaw Ramsay procured 
