YELLOW-BREASTED ICTERIA. 301 



modulations, as to appear near or distant, like the mancEU- 

 vres of ventriloquism. In mild weather, also, when the 

 moon shines, this gabbling, with exuberance of life and 

 emotion, is heard nearly throughout the night, as if the 

 performer were disputing with the echoes of his own voice. 



Soon after their arrival, or about the middle of May, 

 the Icterias begin to build, fixing the nest commonly in 

 a bramble-bush, in an interlaced thicket, a vine, or small 

 cedar, 4 or 5 feet from the ground. The outside is 

 usually composed of dry leaves, or thin strips of grape- 

 vine bark, and lined with root-fibres and dry, slender 

 blades of grass. The eggs are about 4, pale flesh-color- 

 ed, spotted all over with brown or dull red. The young 

 are hatched in the short peried of 12 days ; and leave 

 the nest about the second week in June. While the 

 female is sitting, the cries of the male are still more loud 

 and incessant. He now braves concealment, and, at 

 times, mounts into the air almost perpendicularly 30 or 

 40 feet, with his legs hanging down, and, descending as he 

 rose, by repeated jerks, he seems to be in a paroxysm of 

 fear and anger. Its usual mode of flying is not, howev- 

 er, different from that of other birds. 



The food of the Icteria consists of beetles and other 

 shelly insects ; and, as the summer advances, they feed on 

 various kinds of berries, like the Flycatchers, and seem 

 particularly fond of whortleberries. They are frequent 

 through the Middle States, in hedges, thickets, and 

 near rivulets and watery situations, 



The Icteria is 7 inches long, and 9 in alar extent. Above, it is of a 

 rich deep olive-green, with the exception of the tips of the wings, and 

 the inner vanes of the wing and tail-feathers, which are dusky 

 brown; throat and breast of a bright yellow; the abdomen and vent 

 white ; the front dull cinereous ; lores black ; a line of white extends 

 from the nostril to the upper part of the eye, which it nearly encir- 

 cles ; a spot of white also at the base of the lower mandible. Bill 

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