Specimens from Nicaragua and New Granada appear to be almost perfectly identical with those from Florida and the West Indies, differing only in being just appreciably smaller, which, however, might be expected from their more southern habitat.
Habits. The Gray Kingbird—the Pipiry Flycatcher of Audubon, or Gray Petchary of Jamaica—is, except in Florida, of scarcely more than occasional occurrence within the limits of the United States. A single specimen has been taken in Massachusetts. This was shot in Lynn, October 23, 1868, and was in immature plumage. The bird was shot on a tree near one of the streets of that city by Mr. Charles Goodall. Mr. Audubon also found these birds quite common on the Florida Keys, almost every Key, however small, having its pair. A pair was observed breeding in the college yard at Charleston, S. C., by Dr. Bachman; and for at least three years in succession they regularly returned each year, and raised two broods in a season. This Flycatcher is abundant in St. Croix, Cuba, Jamaica, and in the other West India Islands. In the first-named locality Mr. Alfred Newton found it one of the most conspicuous and commonest birds over the entire island. Its favorite station, he states, was the top of the spearlike unexpanded frond of a tall
mountain-cabbage tree, from which place, in the breeding-season, it darted down to attack almost any animal that passed near. Its favorite object of attack was the Green Heron (Butorides virescens), at which it would make several well-directed swoops, never leaving it until it had driven it into some shelter, when, much pleased with its prowess, it would return to its lookout station and celebrate its victory with cries of triumph. On one occasion Mr. Newton observed a Gray Kingbird pursue a Green Heron out to sea for a quarter of a mile and back. It is described as a very clamorous bird, even when there is apparently no need; taking alarm from the domestic poultry, its oft-repeated notes were heard every morning before the dawn. This noise it continued pertinaciously till sundown. Its food consists of insects, which are caught with great dexterity on the wing. It also feeds very largely on the black berries of a myrtle-leaved parasite that grows abundantly on the orange-trees. The nest is often placed under the fronds or among the spathes of a cocoanut or mountain-cabbage tree, and sometimes in any ordinary situation. It is described as flat in construction and large for the size of the bird, being nearly a foot in diameter, composed of a platform of twigs, in the midst of which is hollowed a cup lined with fine roots. In St. Croix the eggs rarely exceeded three in number, and are spoken of as exceedingly beautiful when fresh, of a delicate creamy white, marked at the larger end with blotches and spots of pink or orange-brown, often disposed in a zone. He found their eggs from May till August.
Mr. Richard Hill, of Spanishtown, Jamaica, in some interesting notes furnished to Mr. Gosse, states that along the seaside savannas of that island migrant flocks of these birds swarm early in September. Numbers then congregate on the trees around the cattle ponds and about the open meadows, pursuing the swarms of insects which fill the air at sundown. These throngs are immediately joined by resident birds of this species, which gather about the same places, and do not return to their usual abodes until the breeding-season is at hand.
The Jamaica bird is not exclusively an insect-feeder, but eats very freely of the sweet wild berries, especially those of the pimento. These ripen in September, and in groves of these this bird may always be found in abundance. By the end of September most of the migrant birds have left the island.
This is among the earliest to breed of the birds of Jamaica. As early as January the mated pair is said to be in possession of some lofty tree, sounding at day-dawn a ceaseless shriek, which is composed of a repetition of three or four notes, sounding like pē-chēē-ry, according to Mr. Hill, and from which they derive their local name. In these localities they remain until autumn, when they quit these haunts and again congregate about the lowland ponds. In feeding, just before sunset, they usually sit, eight or ten in a row, on some exposed twig, darting from it in pursuit of their prey, and returning to it to devour whatever they have caught. They are rapid in
their movements, ever constantly and hurriedly changing their positions in flight. As they fly, they are able to check their speed suddenly, and to turn at the smallest imaginable angle. At times they move off in a straight line, gliding with motionless wings from one tree to another. When one descends to pick an insect from the surface of the water, it has the appearance of tumbling, and, in rising again, ascends with a singular motion of the wings, as if hurled into the air and endeavoring to recover itself.
In the manner in which the male of this species will perch on the top of some lofty tree, and from that vantage-height scream defiance to all around him, and pursue any large bird that approaches, as described by Mr. Hill, all the audacity and courage of our Kingbird is exhibited. At the approach of a Vulture or a Hawk, he starts off in a horizontal line, after rising in the air to the same height as his adversary, and, hovering over him for a moment, descends upon the intruder’s back, rising and sinking as he repeats his attack, and shrieking all the while. In these attacks he is always triumphant.
This Flycatcher is also charged by Mr. Hill with seizing upon the Humming-Birds as they hover over the blossoms in the garden, killing its prey by repeated blows struck on the branch, and then devouring them.
The nest, according to Mr. Hill, is seldom found in any other tree than that of the palm kind. Among the web of fibres around the footstalk of each branch the nest is woven of cotton-wool and grass. The eggs, he adds, are four or five, of an ivory color, blotched with deep purple spots, intermingled with brown specks, the clusters thickening at the greater end. Mr. Gosse, on the contrary, never found the nest in a palm. One, taken from an upper limb of a bitterwood-tree that grew close to a friend’s door, at no great height, was a cup made of the stalks and tendrils of a small passion flower, the spiral tendrils very prettily arranged around the edge, and very neatly and thickly lined with black horse-hair. The other, made in a spondias bush, was a rather loose structure, smaller and less compact, almost entirely composed of tendrils, with no horse-hair, but a few shining black frond-ribs of a fern.