The birds of Jamaica

by Philip Henry Gosse

Muscicapa Dominicensis,	Linn.—Aud. pl. 170.
Tyrannus griseus,	Vieill. Ois. de l’Am. 46.
Tyrannus Dominicensis,	Bonap.

[48] Length 9½ inches, expanse 14½, tail 3⁸⁄₁₀, flexure 4⁵⁄₈, rictus 1¼, tarsus ⁹⁄₁₀, middle toe ¾. Irides dark hazel. Intestine 8 inches: two cæca very minute, about ¹⁄₈ inch long, and no thicker than a pin, at 1 inch from the cloaca. Sexes exactly alike.

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.