LAND BIRDS. 645 



of a Chat, and on September 18, near Detroit, he heard several times a 

 bird which he identified pretty certainly as a Chat. Mr. Norman A. 

 Wood writes that on May 16, 1906, he found at least one pair of Chats in 

 Steere's swamp near Ann Arbor. This swamp is in the old Huron River 

 drainage channel and also connects with the Wabash and other drainage 

 systems. Mr. Wood states that this was the first Chat he had ever seen 

 alive, although he had been on the watch for them for the last ten years 

 in this same swamp. On June 28, 1909, Mr. Wood found two pairs of 

 Chats in the same swamp, and has no doubt they bred there. Mr. Covert 

 took a male at Ann Arbor May 21, 1879, and there is a specimen in the 

 Agricultural College museum collected by A. H. Boies in Hillsdale county 

 in June 1890. 



The first eggs taken in the state, so far as we know, are a set of four 

 taken by Jerome Trombley in Summerfield, Monroe county, May 26, 1877. 

 These are now in the Agricultural College collection. Subsequently 

 Mr. Trombley took at least three more sets in one year, and found nests 

 during two other seasons, but he always considered the bird decidedly 

 rare in that vicinity, and of late years has not found it at all. On the 

 other hand, Mr. W. A. Davidson found a pair breeding near Detroit, May 

 29, 1898, and Mr. Chas. E. Wisner secured a set of eggs at Grosse Point 

 Farms, Wayne county, May 30, 1903. Mr. Swales, who furnishes these 

 notes, states that the bird was not secured in either instance. More 

 recently still (June 1905) Swales and Taverner found several Chats near 

 Detroit and heard others, but did not secure specimens, and J. Claire 

 Wood also found them near Detroit on May 16 and 20 and June 6 and 17, 

 all in 1906. The chat has also been found nesting on the north shore of 

 Lake Erie near Point Pelee, Ontario, about twenty miles east of Detroit. 

 These facts show that the bird is quite erratic in its choice of a home and 

 may be fairly common in a region one season and almost absent at another. 

 It has been claimed that the species has become more abundant, or at 

 least has pushed fai'ther north, during the last decade or two, but we find 

 no records which tend to establish this fact. 



Our data are too meager to give us much information as to time of 

 migration, but the Chat doubtless arrives in Michigan in the middle of 

 May or somewhat earlier, and ordinarily remains well into September. 

 Its favorite haunts are thickets, briar patches and cut-over lands on wet 

 ground, and it is rarely found far from such places. It does frequent 

 dry hillsides at some seasons, if these furnish abundant thickets of dense 

 underbrush, but these usually are at no great distance from swamps, 

 spring or streams. 



The Chat is noted for its remarkable success in evading observation, 

 so that it may be fairly abundant in a locality, and one may be constantly 

 within hearing of its varied and remarkal^le notes, and j-et almost never 

 catch a glimpse of the bird. Nevertheless at times it rises recklessly 

 into the air to a height of many yards and then hovers, flutters and drops 

 back into the under]:)rush, at the same time uttering a medley of jerky 

 notes accompanied l)y singuhir contortions of the body, the legs dangling 

 in an ungainly manner and the bird apparently utterly oblivious to its 

 surroundings. IMore rarely still, if an observer remains well hidden, he 

 may see an inquisitive Chat climb to the top of a small bush, or even into 

 the branches of a low tree, in the manner of the IMaryland Yellow-throat, 

 and from a distance it may be seen singing from such an open" perch. 

 Usually, however, its song, or the peculiar collection of notes which does 



