Part 30

I know nothing of the nest, except what the following note may afford. A young friend informs me that he once observed a Rainbird carrying “trash” into the hollow or fork of the divergent limbs of a logwood tree. Some little while after, passing that way, he observed a nest-like accumulation of similar substances, but as it was beyond reach, he took a long stick to poke it out. In doing so, he pushed out an egg, which was about as long as that of the Tinkling, but not so broad: its colour white with many spots, but he had no distinct recollection of what hue they were.

“When pairing,” observes Mr. Hill, “the male bird attracts the female by gracefully displaying his plumage. His long graduated tail, which insensibly blends tints of drab-grey with black, and terminates with a border of white, is then seen expanded. The short rufous wings are spread out, and the whole plumage, from the sage-grey, hair-like, downy web of the back, to the soft, dull yellow under feathers, are in motion, as the bird endeavours by playful dalliance to win his mate’s attention.”

HUNTER.

Old Man.—Rainbird.

Piaya pluvialis.

Cuculus pluvialis, +Gm.+—Sloane. pl. 258. Piaya pluvialis, +Lesson+.

Length 19¹⁄₂ inches, expanse 19¹⁄₂, flexure 7¹⁄₂, tail 11³⁄₄, rictus 2, tarsus 1³⁄₄, middle toe 1¹⁄₂. Irides hazel; feet bluish grey; beak black, gonys pale grey. Plumage extremely loose and unwebbed. Head dark grey, merging on the neck into dark greyish-green, which is the hue of the back, rump, and wings, with metallic gloss. Tail feathers broad, graduated, glossy black, tipped with white, broadly on the outmost. Throat and breast white, the latter greyish; the remaining under parts deep red-brown. Eyelids blackish. Interior of mouth black.

The appellation of Rainbird is indiscriminately applied to both this and the preceding, as is, in a less degree, that of Old Man. I use a term by which I have heard it distinguished, in St. Elizabeth’s, perhaps derived from the perseverance with which it “hunts” (i. e. searches) for its prey.

The manners of this fine bird greatly resemble those of its relative, and its prey is also similar. It is a bird of large size and imposing aspect, and its puffed plumage and long barred tail give it an appearance of even greater magnitude than it possesses. Its voice is sometimes a cackling repetition of one sound, increasing in rapidity until the separate notes are undistinguishable. At other times it is a hoarse croaking. The craw projects below the sternum, and the skin of that part of the abdomen is destitute of feathers and even of down.

The obesity of this bird is often extraordinary; I have seen the fat lying over the bowels, between the stomach and the vent, three-fourths of an inch thick. When alive, it has a strong musky odour, like that of the John-crow.

“In the changes of our mountain roads,” remarks Mr. Hill, “from deep masses of shadowy forest, with prodigious trees overgrown with moss, and climbing shrubs and lianes, to luxuriant and park-like pastures, flowery hedgerows and shrubby thickets,—two sounds, remarkable and different from each other, prevail. The one is the tapping of the Woodpecker, broken in its measured monotony by an occasional scream; and the other the rattle of the Rainbird, varied by a cry at intervals like the caw of the Crow tribe. The deep forest is the haunt of the Woodpecker,—the open thickets the resort of the Rainbird. The insects which form the food of the one, are those that subsist out of the sun-light, and perforate the alburnum of trees, or live beneath the bark; those that are the prey of the other, are the tribes that find their sustenance on the surface of vegetation, exist in the shade, and only resort to the open air to shift from place to place.”

YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO.

May-bird.

Coccyzus Americanus.

Cuculus Americanus, +Linn.+—Aud. pl. 2. Cuculus Carolinensis, +Wils.+ Coccyzus Americanus, +Vieill.+ Erythrophrys Americanus, +Sw.+

Length 13 inches, expanse 16¹⁄₂, flexure 5⁴⁄₁₀, tail 5¹⁄₂, rictus 1²⁄₁₀, tarsus 1, middle toe 1.

All our Cuckoos but the present are permanent residents; this is but a summer visitor. Nor is it at any time very common, a few only taking up their abode with us, while their brethren continue their vernal migration from the southern to the northern continent. In the “Notes of a Year,” before quoted, Mr. Hill has the following observations on this species. “The visit of the May-bird is one of the precursors of the spring rains in this island. The hazy atmosphere which precedes the showers of the vernal season, has already dimmed the usual lustre of the sky; the winds have ceased; the heat has begun to be irritably oppressive; the air to assume a steamy denseness, hot and heavy; the butterflies have left the parched and blighted pastures to congregate wherever they can find any kind of moisture, and the insects to attract the Nightjars to the lowlands, when the stuttering voice of this Yellow-billed Cuckoo is heard among the prognostics of the coming rain.

“The May-bird, unlike the other Cuckoos with us, that never migrate, prefers straggling trees by the wayside to hedgerow thickets. With the first rain that falls, the hedge-trees, cleared of their dust, have begun to put forth fresh foliage, and to form those closer bowers favourable to the shy and solitary habits of this bird. It is [comparatively] long-winged, and its swift arrowy flight might be mistaken for that of some of the wild-pigeons. It ranges excursively, and flies horizontally with a noiseless speed, dropping on the topmost stems of trees, or descending into the middlemost branches. When alighting, it betrays its presence by a sound like the drawling cuck-cuck-cuck of a sauntering barn-door fowl.”

One which was slightly wounded, on being put into a cage with some Pea-doves, began to attack them by munching out their feathers. It was therefore placed by itself, when it sat moody and motionless; attempting occasionally, however, to seize cockroaches which were put in to it, and biting spitefully at the hand when approached.

In skinning this bird, an operation very difficult from the tenderness of the skin, my attention was called to a number of Entozoa, which were writhing about on the surface of the sclerotica of the eyes, within the orbit. They were very active, about half an inch long, and as thick as a horse-hair. Under a lens, they appeared whitish, pellucid, cylindrical, but tapered at each end; the intestinal canal distinctly visible, much corrugated and in motion. There were traces of transverse wrinkles. Sam informed me that he had observed them once before in the eyes of the same species.

BLACK-EARED CUCKOO.

Coccyzus seniculus.

Cuculus seniculus, +Linn.+—Aud. pl. 169. Erythrophrys seniculis, +Sw.+

Length 12¹⁄₂ inches, expanse 15¹⁄₂, flexure 5, tail 6³⁄₄, rictus 1⁴⁄₁₀. tarsus 1¹⁄₁₀, middle toe 1¹⁄₁₀, versatile toe ⁹⁄₁₀. Intestine 10 inches; two cæca, 1¹⁄₄ inch long, about 1¹⁄₂ inch from cloaca.

The tawny underparts, contrasted with the sober grey of the upper, glossed like shot-silk, and the long tail beautifully barred with black and white, render the subject before us one of the handsomest of this genus of Cuckoos. It is a dull, and, so to speak, a stupid bird; we not unfrequently see it suddenly fly out from the woods, and crossing the road rest on a branch at a short distance, where it sits little disturbed by the proximity of passengers: or jumps to another twig near, and thence to another. I have never heard it utter a sound. It lives on soft insects, large spiders, &c., which are stationary, and which it seeks by thus peeping among the trees, and for the capture of which long flights would be unnecessary.

I know nothing of its domestic economy; but in January I have found eggs in the ovary, as large as dust-shot.

The shortness of the intestinal canal, and its freedom from convolutions is remarkable, and struck me forcibly by comparison with that of a White-winged Dove, which I happened to dissect on the same day with this. The length of the intestine in the granivorous bird was forty-one inches, that in the insectivorous, ten.

SAVANNA BLACKBIRD.