The pied cuckoo-shrike. Records of the Raffles Museum, No. 16
C.B. Kloss (1926) presents a taxonomic revision of the subspecies of the Pied Cuckoo-Shrike Lalage nigra, correcting errors in Stuart Baker’s 1923 treatment and establishing a new name for the Nicobar form (p. 158).
Kloss argues that Baker’s 1923 revision is unacceptable on several grounds: Hellmayr had already shown that Turdus sueurii Vieillot has priority over Ceblepyris timorensis S. Mull. for the Lesser Sunda and Celebesian form, and Stresemann had demonstrated that L. n. schisticeps Neumann is an artifact (a composite of a Lalage body and a Pericrocotus head) (p. 158). Kloss further shows that schisticeps is not confined to the Philippines but also occurs in Borneo, based on Raffles Museum collections from Labuan, Jesselton, and Kuching (pp. 159–160). He describes the juvenile plumage of three races—nigra, schisticeps, and sueurii—noting differences in the extent of barring and the development of adult plumage (pp. 160–161). The note closes with a general caution that the vague locality phrase “India Orientali” used by eighteenth-century authors was a comprehensive term covering the area east of the Arabian Sea, and that type localities fixed on such material require careful interpretation (p. 161).