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Show 1870.] MR. R. SWINHOE ON NEW CHINESE BIRDS. 131 2. Descriptions of seven new Species of Birds procured during a cruise up the River Yangtsze (China). By R. S W I N H O E , F.Z.S. (Plate XI.) The following new species of birds were obtained by me during a voyage up the River Yangtsze in the spring of last year. 1. LANIUS WALDENI, sp. nov. (Plate XI.) Crown, hind neck, and upper back clear bluish grey. Frontal band stretching above and below the eye, and covering the entire ear-coverts, deep black. Back, scapulars, rump, and upper tail-coverts fine brownish chestnut, transversely barred with black. Wing-feathers hair-brown, broadly margined with chestnut-brown, a few of the coverts having black bars, and the tertiaries a wash of chestnut with faint bars; the primaries are a darker brown, with narrower edgings. Tail chestnut-brown, faintly barred, the four outer rectrices on each side being tipped with white. Upper parts, axillaries, and carpal edge of wing a pretty cream-colour, almost primrose in some specimens; under edges of the inner webs of remiges pale salmon-colour. Four out of m y five males show a few immature bars on the tibial feathers ; and one has a long cream patch on the lores, while another has just the indication of it. One of the two females has immature bars on the sides of the under parts, has a large cream patch on the lores, and a white half-eyebrow in rear of the eye-line. The other has the basal half of the under mandible pale, a smaller lore spot, the white half-eyebrow, and but a touch of bars on the sides of the breast. Only one of the males shows the white half-eyebrow, and this the most fully adult one. We may say, then, that the sexes are alike, the males being more richly coloured. Length about 6*75; wing 3*4; tail 3*1, outermost rectrix being •65 shorter than the centrals; bill in front *6, its depth *33 ; tarse *83. Sexes of about equal size. Bill deep blackish indigo. Eyes large and full, with blackish-brown irides. Legs pale leaden, with a fleshy tinge. I first saw this species in Fungtoo Hien, Szechuen, on the 5th of May. They were chattering in the trees in notes very similar to those of L. lucionensis. All those first procured were males. On the 11th of May, at Changshow Hien, further up the river, I got the first female; and on the 20th, at Chungking, they were paired and beginning to breed, and I observed plenty of them. When at Peking some months before, I noticed a single specimen in Pere David's museum, which had been procured in that neighbourhood. The nearest ally of this interesting little Butcher-bird* is the Lanius * Since the above was read I have seen an adult L. magnirostris, Less., of Malacca, in Lord Walden's collection, which leads m e to believe that our Szechuen bird is that species in summer plumage. All the Malacca specimens that I have seen, from their light bills, are evidently in winter plumage, and in most cases immature. |