Both this and the Grey Petchary, when excited, open and shut the
coronal feathers alternately. When opened, the appearance is as if a
deep furrow had been ploughed through the plumage of the head, the
sides of which are vividly coloured. Occasionally this furrow is
opened in death, and remains so: one or two birds being brought me in
this condition, when my acquaintance with the species was slight, I
suspected that some of the feathers had been plucked out, in order to
enhance the value of the specimens by displaying the gayer colour. A
male of the present species, which I wounded one day in April, on my
taking it up, began to scream passionately, and to open and shut the
crown, biting ferociously; another from the same tree, probably his
mate, attracted by his cries, pursued me, endeavouring to peck me:
and when repelled, continued to gaze, stretching its neck anxiously,
whenever the screams were repeated.
In the quotation from Robinson’s MSS., page 180, the early habits of
this bird were noticed. On the same subject, Mr. Hill writes me, “I
know no bird-voice, not excepting ‘the cock’s shrill clarion,’ that is
earlier heard than the _pi-pi-pihou_ of the Loggerhead Tyrant. In my
neighbourhood several of the yards are planted with cocoa-nut trees. On
a very lofty cocoa palm to the north of me, a pair of Grey Petcharies
annually nestle in the month of April. On half a dozen less elevated
ones to the west of me, several Loggerheads take up their locations
as early as January, and build their nests there. I say January, as
that is their time for nestling, but I see them there ordinarily by
Christmas, and I hear the clang and clatter of their voices before;
but it is not till the turn of the year, that they unfailingly chant
every morning their peculiar reveillé; singing _pi-pi-pihou, pi-pi—,
pipi-pi-pihou_, for an hour from the firing of the Port Royal gun, a
little before five, till the sun is well up:—they then descend to some
of the lower vegetation round about, and alter their chant from the
more musical _pipi-pihou_, to a sort of scream of _pi-i-i-i-i-hou_,
for the space of about twenty minutes more; when they cease for the
day. It was this remarkable obtrusion of their chant upon the ear,
before day-break, in the shortest of our days, that led me to the
conclusion that they were the _Tyrannus matutinus_ of Vieillot. Buffon,
on remarking that no bird is earlier than the Black-headed Pipiri,
as he designates it, for he is assured that it is heard as soon as
the day begins to dawn, gives two or three striking notes from St.
Domingo correspondents, in which this fact is particularly recorded.
A Mr. Deshayes in his communication writes, that “the Pipiri seen in
the forest, and in ruinate lands, and in cultivated spots, thrives
everywhere; but more especially the Yellow-crested Pipiri, which is
the more multiplied species; that one delights in places that are
inhabited. In winter they draw near to houses, and as the temperature
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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