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LITTLE GREY-HEADED BUSH-SHRIKE. 
Malaconotus super ciliosus , Swains. 
Size of a sparrow. Head, ears, and neck above cinereous ; 
a white stripe above and behind the eye ; back, wings, and 
tail olive with whitish spots ; under parts yellow. 
Innumerable instances occur wherein the variation 
of the colour of birds, generally the best indication 
of species, is nevertheless insufficient to characterize 
them. The Drongo-Shrikes, of which nearly fifteen 
species are known, are all clothed in a uniform black 
plumage ; while the gulls and the terns are uni- 
formly white, with light grey on their hack and 
wings. In the present group, however, the only 
instance of two species being clothed almost precisely 
in the same colours is in the bird before us and 
the Malaconotus olivaceus just described. Except- 
ing that this has white eye-brows, which the other 
has not, the colours in both are precisely the same ; 
yet one is no larger than a sparrow, while the other 
exceeds the size of a thrush. The anatomist, how- 
ever, will readily detect a difference much more im- 
portant ; for while the first joint of the outer toe is 
united to the middle one in M. olivaceus, this joint 
is perfectly free in M. superciliosm. 
To enter upon a detailed account of the plumage 
of this bird is quite unnecessary, inasmuch as it 
