10 
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 
where the species are very numerous : the plumage is 
thick, but the texture of the feathers uncommonly soft 
and lax : the colours are 
always sombre, but often 
variegated with much 
elegance by dark bands 
and white spots. One of 
the largest species, as if 
emblematic of their dis- 
position, is covered all 
over with broad black 
stripes, upon a fawn-coloured ground, strikingly ana- 
logous to the marks of the tiger. The genus Mala- 
conotus represents these birds in Africa ; and, although 
long confounded with them, their ilistinctions are 
very decisive : as the American group is distinguished 
by its dark colours, so is tbe African for the gaiety 
and brightness of the plumage. The Malaconoti, 
in fact, are the most beautiful of aU the shrikes : the 
briglitest crimson, combined with glossy black, or clear 
green with orange or yellow, decorate most of the species ; 
other.s, however, have the sombre colour of the American 
group, but they are never banded ; while a few so nearly 
approach the next, or typical shrikes, that it is extremely 
difficult to distinguish them, otherwise than by the great 
inequality of their lateral toep, — theinneronebeingalways 
mucli shorter tlian the outer, and the latter often so con- 
nected to the midffie toe that the feet become partially sy n- 
dactyle. Of the Australian genus Collurisorna nothing 
beyond its external characters is known, whUe its species 
are very few, and their precise situation in this division 
remains to be demonstrated. They probably, how'ever, 
represent the tenuirostral type. 
(IS.) The LaniaruB, or true shrikes, wiU complete the 
circle of this family. The precise passage between this and 
the last seems to be effected by a remarkable bird, disco- 
vered in South Africa by Mr. Buschell ; it forms our genus 
Chatohlemma, and is the only short-biUed shrike which has 
the frontal ftathers stiff, and directed forward upon the 
