WOOD WARBLERS 189 



bright yellow, shading to white on the belly. 

 There is a white line over the eye to the bill, a 

 white eye ring and white stripes on the neck. 

 The bill is large and slightly curved. He is 

 nearly seven and one-half inches long. 



The Chat has no utterance worthy to be 

 called a song, but it is a noisy creature never- 

 theless. The wonder is that one bird can produce 

 such a potpourri of cacks, chucks and calls as 

 will sometimes greet your ears when in the 

 haunts of this vocal anomaly. It is said that by 

 sharply striking together two pebbles, you can 

 start the Chat into his jumble of sounds, the 

 most peculiar notes, in some respects, of the 

 bird choir. His antics are in keeping with his 

 utterances, and he is the veritable clown of 

 bird-land. 



They build a large nest of coarse grass, leaves 

 and bark, lined with fine grass, in bushes near the 

 ground. The eggs are white, evenly spotted 

 with brown. This bird ranges north to New 

 England in summer and winters in Central 

 America. 



Black-poll Warbler. This plainly dressed 

 Warbler might easily be told by the black cap he 

 wears, suggested by his name. But an easier way, 

 perhaps, to identify him, as it will save you 

 many a scramble in the thicket, is by his thin, 

 wiry song, a monotonous ^'tsee^ tsee, tsee, tsee^ 

 tsee, tsee, " in effect not unlike the sound made 

 by filing a saw. When you first hear it you would 

 probably take it for the sound of a cicada, were 

 it not too early in the season for the shrill notes 

 of that insect. Beginning low, the notes in- 



