Two of the tyrants which I observed are like two with which I grew
fairly familiar in Texas. The scissor-tail is common throughout the
open country, and the long tail feathers, which seem at times to
hamper its flight, attract attention whether the bird is in flight or
perched on a tree. It has a habit of occasionally soaring into the air
and descending in loops and spirals. The scarlet tyrant I saw in the
orchards and gardens. The male is a fascinating little 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 color of the bird
and the character of his performance attract the attention of every
observer, bird, 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 him up in Sclater and Hudson's ornithology
I never dreamed that he belonged to this family. He--for only the male
is so brightly colored--is coal-black with a dull-red back. I saw
these birds on December 1 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 coloring and the grayish or yellowish tones of the ground along
which they ran. The silver-bill tyrant, however, is much more
conspicuous; I saw it in the same neighborhood 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 performance.
He perches motionless, bolt upright, and even then his black coloring