“From the window of the room in which I am writing, I look out upon a very lofty cocoa-nut tree, in the possession of a pair of Petcharies. Long before the voice of any other bird is heard in the morning, even when daylight is but faintly gleaming, the shrill unvarying cry of these birds is reiterated from their aerie on the tree-top. Perched on this vantage-height, they scream defiance to every inhabitant around them, and sally forth to wage war on all the birds that venture near. None but the Swallow dares to take the circuit of their nestling tree. At a signal from one of the birds, perhaps the female, when a Carrion Vulture is sweeping near, or a Hawk is approaching, the mate flings himself upwards in the air, and having gained an elevation equal to that of the bird he intends to attack, he starts off in a horizontal line, with nicely balanced wings, and hovering for a moment, descends upon the intruder’s back, shrieking all the while, as he sinks and rises, and repeats his attacks with vehemence. The Carrion Vulture, that seldom courses the air but with gliding motion now flaps his wings eagerly, and pitches downward at every stroke his assailant makes at him, and tries to dodge him. In this way he pursues him, and frequently brings him to the ground. “The Hawk is beset by all birds of any power of wing, but the boldest, and, judging from the continued exertion he makes to escape, the most effective of his assailants is the Petchary. It is not with feelings of contempt the Hawk regards this foe:—he hurries away from him with rapid flight, and hastily seeks to gain some resting place; but as he takes a direct course from one exposed tree to another equally ill-suited, he is seen again submitting to the infliction of a renewed visit from his pertinacious assailant, till he is constrained to soar upward, and speed away, wearied by the buffets of his adversary. “The appearance of the Petchary, when he erects the feathers of his crest, or opens those of his forehead, and shews glimpses of his fiery crown is fierce, vindictive, and desperate. His eye is deeply dark, and his bill, although it greatly resembles, in its robust make, that of the Raven, is even of sturdier proportions than that bird’s; the bristles are black, and amazingly strong. “The Petchary has been known to make prey of the Humming-bird, as it hovers over the blossom of the garden. When he seizes it, he kills it by repeated blows, struck on the branch where he devours it. I have remarked him, beside, beating over little spaces of a field, like a Hawk, and reconnoitring the flowers beneath him; searching also along the blossoms of a hedge-bank, and striking so violently into the herbage for insects, that he has been turned over as he grabbed his prey, and seemed saved from breaking his neck in his vehemence, only by the recoil of the herbage.