The specimens collected by Lieutenant Couch, and described in the Pacific Railroad Report are considerably smaller, and exhibit other differences which may prove of specific importance. In this case they will appropriately bear Rüppell’s name of P. mexicanus.
Habits. This is a Mexican species, occasionally extending its movements as far north as the valley of the Rio Grande, and probably crossing our lines into Texas, although of this there is as yet no positive evidence.
Specimens of this species were procured by Lieutenant Couch at Boquillo, San Diego, and at China, in north-eastern Mexico, and were found by him living in forests of high trees. It is Jay-like in its habits, being decidedly gregarious, and having harsh and loud notes. Though making more noise than any other bird in the neighborhood, if one of their number is brought down by the discharge of a gun, the noise hushes them at once, and the rest move off in perfect silence.
Mr. Sumichrast, in his paper on the Distribution of the Birds of Vera Cruz, states that this species abounds in both the hot and the temperate regions of that department, and, indeed, the greater portions of Vera Cruz. He speaks of it as a bird well known and generally detested on account of its troublesome and noisy habits. It is found everywhere except in the alpine region, and it does not appear ever to go beyond a vertical elevation of 4,500 feet. This gentleman has been assured that the bird never makes any nest of its own, but invariably lays its eggs in those belonging to other birds. He does not so state, but we infer that he means to convey the idea that this Jay appropriates the nests of other birds in which to hatch its own young, not that, like the Cowbird, it leaves its eggs to be brought up by strangers.
This Jay was met with by Mr. G. C. Taylor at Taulevi, in Honduras; and from that place eastward, as far as the Atlantic, he found it very common. It was generally seen or heard shrieking in the bushes by the roadsides. It was also found by Mr. Salvin to occur on the eastern road between Quiriqua and Iguana, on the road to Guatemala.
Mr. Joseph Leyland found this species common both in Honduras and the Belize. It occurred in small flocks, which were very noisy, and annoyed the hunter by always giving the alarm.
Family TYRANNIDÆ.—Tyrant Flycatchers.
Primary Characters. Primaries ten. Bill in typical forms broad, triangular, much depressed, abruptly decurved and notched at tip, with long bristles along gape. Tarsi with scutellæ extending round the outer face of tarsus from the front to back; sometimes divided on the outer side. Bill with culmen nearly as long as the head, or shorter; straight to near the tip, then suddenly bent down into a conspicuous hook, with a notch behind it; tip of lower jaw also notched. Commissure straight to near the notch; gonys slightly convex. Nostrils oval or rounded, in the anterior extremity of the nasal groove, and more or less concealed by long bristles which extend from the posterior angle of the jaws along the base of the bill, becoming smaller, but reaching nearly to the median line of the forehead. These bristles with lateral branches at the base. Similar bristles are mixed in the loral feathers and margin the chin. Tarsi short, generally less than middle toe, completely enveloped by a series of large scales, which meet near the posterior edge of the inner side, and are separated either by naked skin or by a row of small scales. Sometimes a second series of rather large plates is seen on the posterior face of the tarsus, these, however, usually on the upper extremity only. Basal joint of middle toe united almost throughout to that of the outer toe, but more than half free on the inner side; outer lateral toe rather the longer. Wings and tail variable; first quill always more than three fourths the second. The outer primaries sometimes attenuated near the tip.
The primary characters given above will serve to distinguish the North American Tyrannidæ from their allies; the essential features consisting in the peculiarity of the scales of the tarsus and the ten primaries. In the Sylvicolidæ there are species as truly “flycatching,” and with a depressed bristly bill, but the nine (not ten) primaries, and the restriction of the scales to the anterior face of the tarsus, instead of extending entirely round the outer side, will readily separate them.