Part 19

The history of this bird shall be mainly told by my valued friend Mr. Hill. “It is along the sea-side savannas and pastures, and among the adjacent hills and valleys, that the migratory flocks of the Grey Petchary swarm at the beginning of September. Occasional showers have given a partial freshness to the lowland landscape; the fields have begun to look grassy and green, and the trees to brighten with verdure, when numbers of these birds appear congregated on the trees around the cattle ponds, and about the open meadows, hawking the insect-swarms that fill the air at sun-down. No sooner do the migrant visitors appear on our shores, than the several birds of the species, that breed with us, quit their nestling trees, and disappear from their customary beat. They join the stranger flocks, and gather about the places to which the migratory visitors resort, and never resume their ordinary abodes till the breeding season returns.

The migrant visitors do not appear among us many days before they become exceedingly fat: they are then eagerly sought after by the sportsman, who follows the flocks to their favourite haunts, and slaughters them by dozens. The Petchary is not exclusively an insect-feeder;—the sweet wild berries tempt him. In September the pimenta begins to fill and ripen, and in these groves the birds may always be found, not so much gathered in flocks as thickly dispersed about. It is, however, at sunset that they exclusively congregate; when insect life is busiest on the wing. Wherever the stirring swarms abound, they may be seen ranged in dense lines on the bare branch of some advantageous tree. By the end of September, the migrant Petcharies quit us, leaving with us most of those which bred with us.”

“The Petchary is among the earliest breeders of the year. As early as the month of January the mated pairs are already in possession of some lofty and commanding tree, sounding at day-dawn that ceaseless shriek, composed of a repetition of some three or four shrill notes, very similar to the words pecheery—pecheery—pe-chēēr-ry, from which they receive their name. To this locality they remain constant till the autumn. They then quit these haunts, and congregate about the lowland ponds. At some hour or two before sunset, they assemble in considerable numbers to prey upon the insects that hover about these watering-places. They are then observed unceasingly winging upward and downward, and athwart the waters, twittering and shrieking, but never flying far. They dart off from some exposed twig, where they had sat eight or ten in a row, and return to it again, devouring there, the prey they have caught. Their evolutions are rapid; their positions of flight are constantly and hurriedly changing; they shew at one while all the outer, and at another all the inner plumage; and they fly, checking their speed suddenly, and turning at the smallest imaginable angle. There are times when the Petchary starts off in a straight line from his perch, and glides with motionless wings, as light and buoyant as a gossamer, from one tree to another. When he descends to pick an insect from the surface of the water, his downward course is as if he were tumbling, and when he rises in a line upward, he ascends with a curious lift of the wings, as if he were thrown up in the air, and were endeavouring to recover himself from the impetus.

“The congregated flocks disappear entirely before the month of October is out. It is only in some five or six weeks of the year that they are reconciled to association in communities. At all other times they restrict their company to their mates, and permit no other bird to divide with them their solitary trees.

“From the window of the room in which I am writing, I look out upon a very lofty cocoa-nut tree, in the possession of a pair of Petcharies. Long before the voice of any other bird is heard in the morning, even when daylight is but faintly gleaming, the shrill unvarying cry of these birds is reiterated from their aerie on the tree-top. Perched on this vantage-height, they scream defiance to every inhabitant around them, and sally forth to wage war on all the birds that venture near. None but the Swallow dares to take the circuit of their nestling tree. At a signal from one of the birds, perhaps the female, when a Carrion Vulture is sweeping near, or a Hawk is approaching, the mate flings himself upwards in the air, and having gained an elevation equal to that of the bird he intends to attack, he starts off in a horizontal line, with nicely balanced wings, and hovering for a moment, descends upon the intruder’s back, shrieking all the while, as he sinks and rises, and repeats his attacks with vehemence. The Carrion Vulture, that seldom courses the air but with gliding motion now flaps his wings eagerly, and pitches downward at every stroke his assailant makes at him, and tries to dodge him. In this way he pursues him, and frequently brings him to the ground.

“The Hawk is beset by all birds of any power of wing, but the boldest, and, judging from the continued exertion he makes to escape, the most effective of his assailants is the Petchary. It is not with feelings of contempt the Hawk regards this foe:—he hurries away from him with rapid flight, and hastily seeks to gain some resting place; but as he takes a direct course from one exposed tree to another equally ill-suited, he is seen again submitting to the infliction of a renewed visit from his pertinacious assailant, till he is constrained to soar upward, and speed away, wearied by the buffets of his adversary.

“The appearance of the Petchary, when he erects the feathers of his crest, or opens those of his forehead, and shews glimpses of his fiery crown is fierce, vindictive, and desperate. His eye is deeply dark, and his bill, although it greatly resembles, in its robust make, that of the Raven, is even of sturdier proportions than that bird’s; the bristles are black, and amazingly strong.

“The Petchary has been known to make prey of the Humming-bird, as it hovers over the blossom of the garden. When he seizes it, he kills it by repeated blows, struck on the branch where he devours it. I have remarked him, beside, beating over little spaces of a field, like a Hawk, and reconnoitring the flowers beneath him; searching also along the blossoms of a hedge-bank, and striking so violently into the herbage for insects, that he has been turned over as he grabbed his prey, and seemed saved from breaking his neck in his vehemence, only by the recoil of the herbage.

“His nest in this part of the island has seldom been found in any other trees than those of the palm-kind. Amid the web of fibres that encircle the footstalk of each branch of the cocoa-nut, he weaves a nest, lined with cotton, wool, and grass. The eggs are four or five, of an ivory colour, blotched with deep purple spots, intermingled with brown specks, with the clusters thickening at the greater end. The Eagle, flapping his pinions as he shrieks from his rock when the tempest-cloud passes by, is not a more striking picture than this little bird, when, with his anxieties all centred in the cradle of his young ones, he stands in ‘his pride of place,’ on the limb of his palm, towering high above all other trees, and battling with the breeze that rocks it, and, rush after rush as the wind sweeps onward, flutters his wings with every jerk of the branches, and screams like a fury.”

I have little to add to the above detail. With us at the western end of the Island, the Grey Petchary is wholly migratory, not one having been seen by us from October to April. If its migrations be, as I have reason to think, not northward and southward, but eastward and westward, this fact is easily accounted for, from the greater nearness of our part to Central America, where they probably winter. This species is found in St. Domingo, but not, as it appears, in Cuba, where it seems to be represented by T. Magnirostris, D’Orb., nor has it been recognised, except accidentally, in North America. Even its wintering about Spanish Town, seems to be not constant, for from communications made to me by Mr. Hill, the present spring, I infer none had been seen through the winter. In Westmoreland, I observed the first individual after the winter, on the 30th of March, at the Short Cut of Paradise-morass; and a day or two afterwards they were numerous there, and were advancing to the eastward. Yet on the 16th of April, Mr. Hill writes me, “It is worth remarking that, although Grey Petcharies have been several days now with you, they have not made their appearance here yet.” He adds the interesting note, afforded by some friends who had in March visited the Pedro kays, that “the Grey Petchary, was seen making its traverse by those rocks,” and that “the migratory birds that visited those islets came from the west and departed to the eastward, or, as it was otherwise expressed, they came from the Indian coast, and proceeded on to the coast of Jamaica, coursing from southward and westward to northward and eastward.” The dispersion of the arrived migrants along the groves of Jamaica, seems to be very leisurely, for a month after their appearance with us, Mr. Hill writes, on the 28th of April, “This morning the Grey Petchary made his appearance on the lofty cocoa-nut, for the first time this season. He is there now, shivering his wings, on its flaunting limbs, unceasingly screaming pi-chee-ree-e. He is turning about and proclaiming his arrival to every quarter of the wind. He is Sir Oracle, and no dog must bark in his neighbourhood.”

I have not observed in the vicinity of Bluefields, the predilection alluded to by my friend of this bird for the Palm-tribe. Several pairs have nested under my notice, but none of them were in palm-trees. Of two which I procured for examination, one was from an upper limb of a bitterwood-tree, of no great height, close to a friend’s door. It was a cup made of the stalks and tendrils of either a small passion-flower or a bryony, the spiral tendrils prettily arranged round the edge, and was very neatly and thickly lined with black horse-hair. It contained three young, newly hatched, and thinly clothed with a buff-coloured down, and one egg. The other was from a hog-plum (Spondias). It was a rather loose structure, smaller and less compact, composed almost entirely of tendrils, which gave it a crisped appearance; a few stalks entered into the frame, but there was no horse-hair within; but one or two of the shining black frond-ribs of a fern, scarcely thicker than hair. The eggs, three in number, were round-oval, 1 inch by ³⁄₄; dull reddish-white, handsomely marked with spots and angular clouds of red-brown, much resembling the sinuous outline of land on a terrestrial globe.

COMMON PETCHARY.

Tyrannus caudifasciatus.—+D’Orbigny.+

Length 8³⁄₄ inches, expanse 13, tail 3⁴⁄₁₀, flexure 4¹⁄₈, rictus 1⁷⁄₂₀, tarsus 1, middle toe ⁸⁄₁₀.

Irides hazel. Intestine short, about 4¹⁄₂ inches, cæca rudimentary: stomach slightly muscular.

D’Orbigny in the Ornithology of Ramon de la Sagra’s work on Cuba, has described and figured this species, which in its appearance and manners very much resembles the King-bird of the United States, as it does also the preceding species. It is, however, a permanent inhabitant of Jamaica. In Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth’s, the name Petchary is applied indifferently to this and the grey species, as the equivalent term Pitirre, in Cuba seems to indicate any species of Tyrannus. Vieillot has described a closely allied bird, if not identical with ours, by the name of Tyr. Pipiri. But in the neighbourhood of Spanish Town, this species is distinguished from the grey, to which the name Petchary is there confined, by the term Loggerhead, which, with us to leeward, is applied to the rufous species, T. Crinitus. It is well to be aware of this confusion of local names, or we may be liable to predicate of one species, what is true only of another.

It is one of the commonest birds of Jamaica, both in the lowlands and the hilly districts, nor is it rare even at the elevation of the Bluefields Peaks. It seems to delight in the fruit and timber-trees, which are thickly planted in the pens, and around the homesteads of the southern coast, and everywhere, in fact, where insects are numerous. The larger kinds of insects form the prey of this species as of the former. I have seen one pursue with several doublings a large Cetonia, which, however, having escaped, the bird instantly snapped up a Cicada of still greater bulk, and began to beat it to kill it, while the poor insect sung shrilly as it was being devoured. It frequently resorts to a tree that overhangs still water, for the purpose of hawking after the dragon-flies that skim over the surface. The size of these insects, and their projecting wings, would seem to make the swallowing of them a matter of some difficulty; for I have noticed that the bird jerks the insect round by little and little, without letting it go, till the head points inward, when it is swallowed more readily. Mr. Hill has noticed a very interesting trait in this bird, so frequently as to be properly called a habit. It will play with a large beetle as a cat with a mouse, no doubt after its appetite has been sated. Sitting on a twig, and holding the beetle in its beak, it suddenly permits it to drop, then plunging downward, it gets beneath the insect before it has had time to reach the ground, and turning upward catches it as it falls. It sometimes continues this sport a quarter of an hour.

In the winter season, the seeds of the Tropic-birch (Bursera) appear to constitute a large portion of the food of our Tyrannidæ. One day in January, I observed two Petcharies on a birch-tree, fluttering in an unusual manner, and stood to watch their proceedings. I found they were feeding on the ripe berries, which they plucked off in a singular manner. Each bird sitting on a twig, seized a berry in his beak, then throwing back his head till he was in a perpendicular position, tugged till the stalk gave way, his wings being expanded, and vibrated all the while to prevent him from falling. Yet, even at this season, they contrive to fill their craws with insects; for one which I dissected the next day, had its stomach filled with hymenoptera and coleoptera, among which were the fragments of a most brilliant little Buprestis, the possession of which I envied it. I observed that the stomach was protuberant below the sternum, as in the cuckoos. At this early season, the time of incubation was near; for the ovary of this specimen contained an egg as large as a small marble; and my lad who shot it, told me that this one and its mate were toying and pursuing each other around a tall manchioneel-tree, on one of whose upper limbs he discovered a nest nearly finished.

The nest consists of a loose basket of dry stems of yam, and tendrils of passion-flower, lined with a slight cup of horse-hair and fibres from palmetto-leaves. Four or five eggs are laid, of a drab hue or reddish-white, with blotches of reddish-brown and bluish irregularly intermixed, but chiefly arranged in the form of a crown around the larger end.

In the month of September they become, in common with their grey congeners, a mere mass of fat, and are at this time in much request for the table. They are supposed to acquire this fatness by feeding on the honey-bees, which then resort in great numbers to the magnificent bloom-spike of the cabbage-palm. Hither the Petchary also resorts, and sitting on a frond captures the industrious insects as they approach. At this time the large and branching spike of blossom, projecting and then curving gracefully downwards, and looking as if exquisitely moulded in white wax, is a very beautiful object; and the pollen from the flowers is diffused so abundantly, that the ground beneath the tree, appears exactly as if it had been visited by a snow-shower.

This appears to be the species alluded to by Robinson in the following note. “They [the Tyrants, Baristi, as he calls them,] are all very bold birds, especially the largest species called the Loggerhead, who beats all kinds of birds indiscriminately; he is also the harbinger of the morning, constantly giving notice of the approach of day by his cry. When he is beating a Carrion Crow or other birds, he snaps his bill very frequently; he is a very active, bold bird, and feeds upon insects and lizards. I have seen him give chase to a lizard round the trunk of a small tree, flying in circles with surprising activity. In beating any large bird, both cock and hen (if both are in the way,) join in the quarrel or scuffle.” In these assaults, the intrepid Petchary does not always come off scathless. “And here,” says Robinson in speaking of the Red-tailed Buzzard, “I cannot help recollecting an unhappy though deserved ill-fate, which sometimes befalls the large Loggerhead. Everybody is acquainted with the pugnacious nature of this little bird; for he attacks and buffets every large bird that happens to fall in his way, snapping his beak and pursuing him with great violence; and among others this great Hawk is often disturbed and beaten by him.

Robinson’s MSS. ii. 102.

“At Chestervale, in the cultivated ground, it is common for this Hawk to perch upon the top of some dry tree. This situation he chooses that he may the better view the ground beneath, and observe if a rat or other animal should make its appearance. While he sits here upon the watch, ’tis ten to one but he is attacked by the Loggerhead, whom he suffers to buffet and beat him with great patience, without offering to stir once from his place; till, his assailant being quite tired and spent with the violence of his exercise, inadvertently sits down on some twig not far distant from his passive, and, as he may think, inoffensive enemy. That enemy, however, now keeps his eye fixed on him, and no sooner does he begin to preen his feathers, or look carelessly about him, than down pounces the Hawk suddenly upon him, seizes the unwary bird in his talons, and devours him.”

MSS.

The courage of the Tyrants in defence of their nests, is well known; but it seems at times to become almost a mania. The late proprietor of Mount Airy, in his daily walks about the estate, was attacked with such virulence by a Petchary that was nesting, the bird actually pecking his head, that he was compelled to take out a stick in defence, with which he at length struck down the too valiant bird. Dogs seem especially obnoxious to it, and this not only during incubation; at any time a passing dog is likely to be assaulted by this fierce bird, and if he be so unfortunate as to have any sore on his body, that is sure to be the point of attack. One of my youths, a veracious lad, narrated to me the following circumstance, to which he was witness. A large dog was following his mistress through Mount Edgecumbe Pen, when a Petchary flew virulently at him: on the shoulder of the dog was a large running sore; to this the bird directed his attention: suspending himself over the wound, he clutched with his extended feet as if he wished to seize it thus, snapping angrily with his beak; then suddenly he pecked the wound, while the dog howled in agony. The bird, however, repeated its assaults exactly in the same manner, until the blood ran down the shoulder from the wound; the dog all the while seemingly cowed and afraid to run, but howling most piteously, and turning round to snap at the bird. The woman was at some distance ahead, and took no notice; and the war continued until my informant left. The Petchary continued, in this case, on the wing; but frequently he alights on the dog to peck him.

Both this and the Grey Petchary, when excited, open and shut the coronal feathers alternately. When opened, the appearance is as if a deep furrow had been ploughed through the plumage of the head, the sides of which are vividly coloured. Occasionally this furrow is opened in death, and remains so: one or two birds being brought me in this condition, when my acquaintance with the species was slight, I suspected that some of the feathers had been plucked out, in order to enhance the value of the specimens by displaying the gayer colour. A male of the present species, which I wounded one day in April, on my taking it up, began to scream passionately, and to open and shut the crown, biting ferociously; another from the same tree, probably his mate, attracted by his cries, pursued me, endeavouring to peck me: and when repelled, continued to gaze, stretching its neck anxiously, whenever the screams were repeated.

In the quotation from Robinson’s MSS., page 180, the early habits of this bird were noticed. On the same subject, Mr. Hill writes me, “I know no bird-voice, not excepting ‘the cock’s shrill clarion,’ that is earlier heard than the pi-pi-pihou of the Loggerhead Tyrant. In my neighbourhood several of the yards are planted with cocoa-nut trees. On a very lofty cocoa palm to the north of me, a pair of Grey Petcharies annually nestle in the month of April. On half a dozen less elevated ones to the west of me, several Loggerheads take up their locations as early as January, and build their nests there. I say January, as that is their time for nestling, but I see them there ordinarily by Christmas, and I hear the clang and clatter of their voices before; but it is not till the turn of the year, that they unfailingly chant every morning their peculiar reveillé; singing pi-pi-pihou, pi-pi—, pipi-pi-pihou, for an hour from the firing of the Port Royal gun, a little before five, till the sun is well up:—they then descend to some of the lower vegetation round about, and alter their chant from the more musical pipi-pihou, to a sort of scream of pi-i-i-i-i-hou, for the space of about twenty minutes more; when they cease for the day. It was this remarkable obtrusion of their chant upon the ear, before day-break, in the shortest of our days, that led me to the conclusion that they were the Tyrannus matutinus of Vieillot. Buffon, on remarking that no bird is earlier than the Black-headed Pipiri, as he designates it, for he is assured that it is heard as soon as the day begins to dawn, gives two or three striking notes from St. Domingo correspondents, in which this fact is particularly recorded. A Mr. Deshayes in his communication writes, that “the Pipiri seen in the forest, and in ruinate lands, and in cultivated spots, thrives everywhere; but more especially the Yellow-crested Pipiri, which is the more multiplied species; that one delights in places that are inhabited. In winter they draw near to houses, and as the temperature of this season in these climates, has much the character of spring-time in France, it would seem that the prevailing coolness and freshness fills them with life and gaiety. Indeed never are they seen so full of clatter, and so cheerful as in the months of November and December; they then tease each other, and dash along somersetting (voltigent) one after the other, as a sort of prelude to love-making.’” My friend again writes me on the 30th of April:—“As I lay fever-wake on the morning of the 27th, I heard again the Loggerhead Tyrant singing most musically his day-dawn salutation of pipi-pihou. My sister, who listened to the early songster too, thinks that +op+, +pp+, +p+, +q+, is his morning lesson; and it is, perhaps, the closest resemblance to his chant. He is a scholar after the fashion of modern Infant schools. His alphabet and multiplication-table are a song. He repeated his lesson the following morning, but I have slept so soundly since, that I cannot say whether he has continued to wake to his learning at the firing of the Port Royal gun.”

RED PETCHARY.