(COCK-TAILED TYRANT.)
+Alectrurus tricolor+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 43.
_Description._--Above black, rump greyish; sides of the head,
scapularies, lesser wing-coverts, and outer margins of secondaries
white; tail black, outer rectrix on each side produced, expanded,
fan-shaped; below white, patch on each side of the breast (forming
an incomplete collar) black; bill horn-colour; feet black: whole
length 7·2 inches, wing 2·8; tail, outer rectr. 2·5, middle rectr.
1·5. _Female_: above brown, rump and lesser wing-coverts pale;
beneath dirty white, sides of breast brown.
_Hab._ S. Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentine Republic.
This species generally resembles the one next described, and has, like
it, a black, white, and grey plumage. But the tail, although strange, is
constructed on a different pattern. The total length of the bird is five
and a half inches, the tail being only two and a half. The two outer
tail-feathers have remarkably stout shafts, with broad coarse webs, and
look like stumps of two large feathers originally intended for a bigger
bird, and finally cut off near their base and given to a very small
one. In the male these two feathers are carried vertically and at right
angles to the plane of the body, giving the bird a resemblance to a
diminutive cock; hence the vernacular name 'Gallito,' or Little Cock, by
which it is known.
I have not observed this species myself, but Azara has the following
paragraph about its habits:--"The male sometimes rises slowly and almost
vertically, with tail raised, and rapidly beating its wings, and looking
while ascending in this way more like a butterfly than a bird; and when
it has reached a height of ten or twelve yards, it drops obliquely to
the earth and perches on a stalk." He adds that the males are solitary,
but several females are sometimes seen near together, and that the
females are greatly in excess of the males.