30 
Mr. Robert Collett on 
f 
VI. —On Lankis excubitor and Lanins major. 
By Robert Collett. 
In the eighth volume of the ‘ Catalogue of Birds in the 
British Museum/ Dr. Gadow has established, under the 
genus Lanius, a number of species more or less closely allied 
to L. excubitor, all of which are kept distinct with definite 
specific characters, in part new or amended by the author. 
But these “ species” will, I have little doubt, ultimately 
prove to represent partly mere climatic races, originating in 
all directions from one typical species, and which, by various 
transition-stages, are ultimately connected, partly mere indi¬ 
vidual varieties, the origin of which, as a rule, cannot be 
shown to have any definite relation with age, locality, or the 
season of the year. 
In the following pages I propose to offer a few remarks 
concerning the well-known form described in Gadow’s Cata¬ 
logue (p. 239) under the name L. major , Pall., the right of 
which to be regarded as a true species by the side of 
L. excubitor has, in all probability, been treated of oftener 
than any of the other forms, has been admitted by many, and 
disputed, perhaps, by more. 
This question would seem to have occupied the attention 
of ornithologists more especially since Cabanis, in 1873 
(Journ. f. Orn. 1873, p. 75), recorded an individual killed 
near the Wolga, in which he recognized Pallas’s L. major , 
and which, to the best of his knowledge, was the first 
obtained in Europe. It is a well-known fact that, in the 
following years, accounts appeared of other examples of the 
said species or form, stating it to have been long known in 
European museums, nay, to be even of frequent occurrence. 
Here, too (Norway and Denmark), the subject has been 
treated of and brought under discussion. Whereas Dr. 
Stejneger, in f Archiv f. Mathematik og Naturvidenskab ’ 
for 1878 and 1880 (Christiania), keeps the two forms apart 
as separate species, I have, in the volume of the same j ournal 
for 1879, endeavoured to show that the presence or absence 
of the white bases on the secondaries affords no manner of 
