Volume I Part 30 (2/2)

This small Tyrant-bird is a summer visitor in the Plata district; it is shy and solitary; frequents woods and plantations, and perpetually utters, like the English Redstart, its sorrowful monotonous plaint, as it flits about in the upper foliage of the trees.

The nest is placed in a bush or low tree, and built of various soft materials compactly woven together, and the inside lined with feathers or vegetable down. The eggs are four, pale cream-colour, with large, well-defined spots of dark red.

The total length of this species is less than five inches. The prevailing colour of the plumage is rufous brown on the upper, and whitish brown on the under surface. Beneath the loose feathers of the crown there is a concealed spot of orange-red.

162. PYROCEPHALUS RUBINEUS (Bodd.).

(SCARLET TYRANT.)

+Pyrocephalus rubineus+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 51; _Hudson, P. Z. S._ 1872, p. 808; _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 178 (Buenos Ayres); _Gibson, Ibis_, 1880, p. 27 (Buenos Ayres); _Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ vol. viii. p. 201 (Entrerios).

+Pyrocephalus parvirostris+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 456 (Entrerios).

_Description._--Above very dark cinereous, crested head and body below scarlet; bill and feet black: whole length 52 inches, wing 29, tail 23. _Female_ above paler cinereous, below white; breast striated with cinereous; belly more or less rosy red.

_Hab._ S. America, from Colombia down to Buenos Ayres.

It is in vain, I think, to attempt to make more than one species out of this widely-spread bird, though specimens from the west coast are usually smaller.

The Scarlet Tyrant is about five inches and a half long; the neck, back, wings, and tail are black, all the rest of the plumage the most vivid scarlet imaginable. The loose feathers of the crown, which form a crest, are especially brilliant, and seem to glow like a live coal amidst the green foliage. Beside this bright Tyrant-bird even the Rainbow Tanagers look pale, and the ”Jewel Humming-birds” decidedly sad-coloured. It is not strange, therefore, that in South America, where it has a very wide range, it is a species well known to the country people, and that they have bestowed on it many pretty names, most of which have reference to its splendid scarlet colour. In the Argentine Republic it is usually called _Churinche_, from its note, also _Federal_ and _Fuegero_; in other countries _Sangre de Toro_ (bull's blood), and, better still, _Sangre_ _Pura_. Little Soldier and Coal of Fire are also amongst its names. The Guarani tribes call it _Guira-pita_ (red-bird); but another Indian name, mentioned by d'Orbigny, is the best--_Quarhi-rahi_, which signifies Sun-born.

The Churinche appears in Buenos Ayres about the end of September, and is usually first seen in localities to which Tyrant-birds are partial, such as low gra.s.sy grounds, with here and there a stalk or bush, and near a wood or plantation. Insects are most abundant in such places; and here the Churinche is seen, perched on a twig, darting at intervals to snap at the flies after the fas.h.i.+on of the Flycatchers, and frequently uttering its low, plaintive note. It is very common in the woods along the Plata; every orchard on the pampas is visited by a few of them; and they are very abundant about Buenos Ayres city. Going south they become rarer; but, strange to say, a few individuals find their way to the sh.o.r.es of the Rio Negro, though before reaching it they must cross a high, barren country quite unsuited to them. The natives of the Carmen have no name for the Churinche, but speak of it as a bird wonderful for its beauty and seldom seen. Amongst the dull-plumaged Patagonian species it certainly has a very brilliant appearance.

A very few days after their arrival the Churinches pair; and the male selects a spot for the nest--a fork in a tree from six to twelve feet from the ground, or sometimes a horizontal bough. This spot the male visits about once a minute, sits on it with his splendid crest elevated, tail spread out, and wings incessantly fluttering, while he pours out a continuous stream of silvery gurgling notes, so low they can scarcely be heard ten paces off, and somewhat resembling the sound of water running from a narrow-necked flask, but infinitely more rapid and musical. Of the little bird's homely, grey, silent mate the observer will scarcely obtain a glimpse, she appearing as yet to take little or no interest in the affairs that so much occupy the attention of her consort, and keep him in a state of such violent excitement. He is exceedingly pugnacious, so that when not fluttering on the site of his future nest, or snapping up some insect on the wing, he is eagerly pursuing other male Churinches, apparently bachelors, from tree to tree. At intervals he repeats his remarkable little song, composed of a succession of sweetly modulated metallic trills uttered on the wing. The bird usually mounts upwards from thirty to forty yards, and, with wings very much raised and rapidly vibrating, rises and drops almost perpendicularly half a yard's s.p.a.ce five or six times, appearing to keep time to his notes in these motions. This song he frequently utters in the night, but without leaving his perch; and it then has a most pleasing effect, as it is less hurried, and the notes seem softer and more prolonged than when uttered by day. About a week after the birds have arrived, when the trees are only beginning to display their tender leaves, the nest is commenced.

Strange to say, the female is the sole builder; for she now lays by her indifferent mien, and the art and industry she displays more than compensate for the absence of those beauties and accomplishments that make her mate so pleasing to the sight and ear. The materials of which the nest is composed are almost all gathered on trees; they are lichens, webs, and thistle-down: and the dexterity and rapidity with which they are gathered, the skill with which she disposes them, the tireless industry of the little bird, who visits her nest a hundred times an hour with invisible webs in her bill, are truly interesting to the observer.

The lichens firmly held together with webs, and smoothly disposed with the tops outside, give to the nest the colour of the bark it is built on.

After the Churinche's nest is completed, the Bienteveo (_Pitangus bolivia.n.u.s_) and the Common Cow-bird (_Molothrus bonariensis_) are the troublers of its peace. The first of these sometimes carries off the nest bodily to use it as material in building its own; the female Cow-bird is ever on the look out for a receptacle for her eggs. Seldom, however, does she succeed in gaining admittance to the Churinche's nest, as he is extremely vigilant and violent in repelling intruders. But his vigilance at times avails not; the subtle bird has watched and waited till, seizing a moment when the little Scarlet Tyrant is off his guard, she drops her surrept.i.tious egg into his nest. When this happens, the Churinches immediately leave their nest. The nest is sometimes lined with feathers, but usually with thistle-down; the eggs are four, pointed, and spotted at the broad end with black; usually each egg has also a few large grey spots. The young are at first grey, marked with pale rufous, but soon become entirely grey, like the female. In about a month's time the belly of the males begins to a.s.sume a pale mauve-red; this spreads upwards towards the breast and throat; and finally the crest also takes on this colour. The Churinches raise two broods in a season--but if the nest is destroyed, will lay as many as four times.

The Scarlet Tyrant is the first of our summer visitors to leave us. As early as the end of January, and so soon as the young of the second brood are able to feed themselves, the adults disappear. Their going is not gradual, but they all vanish at once. The departure of all other migratory species takes place after a very sensible change in the temperature; but at the end of January the heat is unmitigated--it is, in fact, often greater than during December.

When the adults have gone, the silent young birds remain. Within a month's time the s.e.xes of these may be distinguished. After another month the males begin to sing, and are frequently seen pursuing one another over the fields. It is only at the end of April, three months after the old birds have disappeared, that the young also take their departure. This is one of the strangest facts I have encountered in the migration of birds. The autumnal cold and wet weather seems to be the immediate cause of the young birds' departure; but in the adults, migration appears to be an instinct quite independent of atmospheric changes.

163. EMPIDONAX BIMACULATUS (Lafr. et d'Orb.).

(WING-BANDED TYRANT.)

+Empidochanes argentinus+, _Cab. J. f. O._ 1868, p. 196. +Empidonax brunneus+, _Ridgw. N. A. B._ ii. p. 363 (Parana). +Empidonax bimaculatus+, _Scl. Ibis_, 1887, p. 65.

_Description._--Above umber-brown, more or less rufescent; lores with a whitish spot; wings blackish, all the coverts broadly tipped with pale rufous, forming two transverse bars; outer margins of external secondaries of the same colour; tail brown, but not rufescent; beneath dirty cinereous white, throat and belly brighter, and with a yellowish tinge; under wing-coverts and inner margins of wing-feathers ochraceous; upper mandible dark brown, lower whitish; feet pale brown: whole length 50 inches, wing 26, tail 34.

_Hab._ S.E. Brazil, Bolivia, and N. Argentina.

This obscure species occurs in the northern wooded districts of Argentina.

164. CONTOPUS BRACHYRHYNCHUS, Cab.

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