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Annals of the Transvaal Museum 
migrants, notable examples of which are to be found in the island species 
L. bentet and L. longicaudatus. 
In the genus Fiscus, Sclater has recorded F. humeralis from Wakker- 
stroom (cf. Ibis, 1911, p. 283), but this is clearly an error, the reference 
being to F. pyrrhostictus Holub and Pelzeln (Beitrdge zur Ornithologie 
Sudafrikas, p. 97, PL II, 1882), which was described from Linokana, 
Western Transvaal. F. humeralis is a much smaller bird. 
With regard to the Bush-shrikes, which are commonly placed in a sub- 
family, Laniariinae, there are several genera which might well be removed 
to distinct subfamilies, the fact that they occur in forests side by side with 
the Laniariine shrikes, and have consequently developed fluffy plumage 
or yellow coloration, having little value when compared with the structural 
differences. Nicator, for example, has a semicircle of long bristles in front 
of the eye, a peculiar figure, distinct type of colour markings and altogether 
distinct habits (apart from the fact that it inhabits dense forests). Uro- 
lestes of the dry thorn forests is also quite distinct in many respects, the 
young, in particular, being black with long tails when they leave the nest, 
distinguishable only from the adults by their glossier appearance. The bill 
is sometimes slightly notched and for that reason the genus is placed in 
the typical subfamily of Lanius; but apart from this character, the fluffi- 
ness of the plumes of the back is like that of the Bush-shrikes, to which the 
genus might just as well have been referred. I think, however, that it 
should be placed in a subfamily of its own, by which course any misplacing 
of its phytogeny will be obviated. 
The Laniariine shrikes appear to me to be not far removed from the 
Laniine shrikes, Laniarius having a distant resemblance to Lanius and 
the red-wing shrikes likewise a distant resemblance to Enneoctonus, the 
structural and colour differences being what one would expect from the 
nature of their environment. Dryoscopus has also a likeness to the true 
shrikes, but the extraordinary flufliness of the plumes of the back is a very 
distinct character. Laniarius contains two very distinct groups within our 
limits, L. atrococcineus representing the typical group and L. ferrugineus 
Gmelin another, which I propose to place in a new subgenus, Diplo- 
PHONEUS, characterised by its plainer coloration. 
The Transvaal Museum possesses a very long series of the forms of 
L. ferrugineus, and in elucidation of the forms found \within South African 
limits, the following diagnoses are put forward; but first it may be stated 
that in the Cape Province the adult males are readily distinguished from 
the northern ones by their sexually dimorphic character of having the 
breast and throat white in contrast to the lower parts of the body, those 
from the Zambesi being alike in the sexes in coloration. In juvenile 
specimens much the same change is to be seen as in the adult females, and 
they can be distinguished from adults by having the bill brown, or the 
base of the mandible paler instead of completely black. In Shrikes, the 
female is usually more liable to specific change than the male, and in this 
genus we find the forms conforming to this character. I cannot bring myself 
to consider specific distinction on the evidence available, since the bush 
which the birds occupy is more or less insufliciently isolated to permit of 
the evolution of distinct forms; and the evidence of the material is in 
support. Yet, on the other hand, material is lacking from a great stretch 
