254 
BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
smalt-blue; irides brown; edges of eyelids black; more or less of both 
mandible pale plumbeous or pale dull blue. {Davison.) 
Length 6-8 inches, tail 3, wing 3-2, tarsus -85, bill from gape '9. The 
female is of the same size. 
The Thick-billed Shrike was procured by Mr. Davison at the extreme 
southern point of Tenasserim, where it apparently occurs only as a 
straggler. - . 
It extends down the Malay peninsula, and is found in the island of 
Sumatra, but in both countries probably only in the winter season. Mr. 
Swinhoe states that in the summer it comes to Central China where it 
breeds. It must necessarily in this case occur in Siam and Cochin China, 
but Dr. Tiraud does not seem to have noticed it in the latter country. 
Mr. Davison says of this Shrike :— "Though very rare in Tenasserim, I 
found this plentiful in the Malay peninsula. I observed nothing special 
m its habits. It kept in open country and about cultivated lands in the 
neighbourhood of villages, and comported itself precisely after the manner 
of L. erythi'onotus" 
Subfamily PEIONOPIN^. 
Genus TEPHRODOKNIS, Swains. 
242. TEPHRODORNIS PONDICERIANA. 
THE WHITE-TAILED WOOD-SHRIKE. 
Muscicapa pondiceriana, Gm. S. N. i. p. 939. Tephrodornis affinis, J5l. J. A, 
S. B. xvi. p. 473 ; Hume^ 8. F. i. p. 434 ; Sharpe, Cat. Birds B. Mtis. iii. p. 276. 
Tephrodornis pondiceriana, Jerd. B. Ind. i. p. 410 ; Hume, Nests and Eggs, 
p. 176; Hume, S. F. ill. p. 92; Bl. B. Burm. p. 122; Hume, S. F. iv. p. 458; 
Shar2)e, Cat. Birds B. Mus. iii. p. 275 ; Anders. Yunnan Fxped. p. 646 ; Legge, 
' Birds Ceylon, p. 372 ; Hume, S. F. viii. p. 91 ; Oates, S. F. viii. p. 166. 
Description.' — Male and female. The whole upper plumage with the lesser 
wing-coverts ashy brown_, the rump-feathers tipped with white ; upper tail- 
coverts dark brown; a broad supercilium white^ tinged with rufous ; lores^ 
cheeks and feathers under the eye dark brown ; lower plumage ashy_, whiter 
on the throat and abdomen and darker on the flanks j under tail-coverts 
white ; wings^ with the median and greater coverts^ ashy brown, each feather 
very narrowly edged paler ; the two outer pairs of tail-feathers white^ the 
bases brown and with a brown patch near the tip ; the remaining feathers 
entirely dark brown^ the centre feathers tinged with ashy. 
The young have the head and back spotted with white ; the larger wing- 
