“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.