Thruiti^li the iJraciliaii li ildcnicss. 
loops ami spirals. The Scarlet Tyrant I saw in the orcliards 
and gardens. The male is ? fascinating bird, coal black above, 
while his crested head and the body beneath are brilliant scarlet. 
He utters his rapid low-voiced musical trill in the air, rising with 
fluttering wings to a height of a hundred feet, hovering while 
he sings, and then falling back to earth. The colour of the 
bird and the character of his performance attract the attention 
of every observer-djird, beast, or man — within reach of 
vision. 
" The Red-backed Tyrant is utterly unlike any of his 
kind in the United States, and until I looked liim up in Sclater 
and Hudson's ornithology I never dreamed that he belonged 
to this family. He — for only the male is so brightly coloured — 
is coal-black wich a dull red back. I saw these birds on 
December ist, near Barilloche, out on the bare Patagonian 
plains. They behaved like pipits or longspurs, running actively 
over the ground in the same manner, and showing the same 
restlessness and the same kind of flight. But whereas pipits are 
inconspicuous, the Red-backs at once attracted attention by the 
contrast between their bold colouring and the greyish, or 
yellowish tones of the ground along which they ran. The 
Silver-bill Tyrant, however, is much more conspicuous ; 1 saw it 
in the same neighbourhood as the Red-back, and also in many 
other places. The male is jet-black, with white bill and wings. 
He runs about on the ground like a pipit, but also frequently 
perches on some bush to go through a strange flight-song per- 
formance. He perches motionless, bolt upright, and even then 
his black colouring advertises him for a quarter of a mile round 
about. But every few minutes he springs up into the air to the 
height of twenty or thirty feet, the white wings flashing in 
contrast to the black body, screams and gyrates, and then 
instantly returns to his former post and resumes his erect pose 
of waiting. It is hard to imagine a more conspicuous bird than 
the Silverbill, but the next and last tyrant of wdiich I shall speak 
possesses on the whole the most advertising colouration of any 
small bird I have seen in the open country, and, moreover, this 
advertising colouration exists in both sexes and throughout 
the year. It is a brilliant white all over, except the long wing 
quills and the ends of the tail-feathers, which are black. The 
