(DOMINICAN TYRANT.)
Tænioptera dominicana, Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 460 (Entrerios); Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 42; Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 176 (Buenos Ayres); White, P. Z. S. 1883, p. 38 (Buenos Ayres); Döring, Exp. al Rio Negro, Zool. p. 42 (Azul, Currumalan); Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl. vol. viii. p. 139 (Entrerios, Pigué, Pampas).
Description.—Above pure white; wings black, with a broad whitish subapical band across the first six primaries, beyond which the tips are blackish; tail black; beneath pure white: whole length 8·0 inches, wing 4·6, tail 4·2. Female similar, but head above and back cinereous.
Hab. S.E. Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentine Republic.
This bird ranges from South Brazil and Paraguay to the southernmost pampas of Buenos Ayres. Its total length is eight inches. The wings and tail are black, the former barred with white; all the rest of the plumage in the male is pure white; in the female the upper parts are grey.
It is to some extent migratory, and usually goes in flocks of a dozen or twenty birds, and frequents open situations where there are bushes and trees, also plains covered with giant grasses. They are more social in their habits than T. coronata, but in other respects closely resemble it, and are exceedingly active lively birds, and when the flock is on the wing continually pursue each other in a playful manner.
Mr. Barrows observed them in autumn on the Pigué (southern pampas) preparing for their migration. “Late in March,” he says, “we found them in large scattered flocks, which collected in one place toward evening, and went through a series of aerial evolutions accompanied with vocal exercises of a varied and entertaining kind, lasting half an hour or more.
“I presume this was in preparation for their northward (or westward?) migration, as we did not see them again after leaving this spot.”