WESTERN YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT 599 



Early dates of fall arrival are: California — Azusa, August 31. 

 Mississippi — near Biloxi, August 27. Ehode Island — Block Island, 

 August22. Guatemala — Colomba, Quezaltenango, September 29. 

 Honduras — near Tela, October 7. Nicaragua — Escondido River, Oc- 

 tober 14. El Salvador — Divisadero, October 10. Costa Rica — San 

 Jose, October 26. 



Egg dates. — Arizona: 29 records, April 26 to Aug. 1; 16 records. 

 May 21 to June 9 ; 7 records, July 15 to 25. 



California : 62 records, May 4 to July 13 ; 32 records, May 13 to June 

 4, indicating the height of the season. 



Georgia : 18 records. May 9 to June 2 ; 10 records. May 13 to 20. 



Pennsylvania : 31 records. May 19 to June 25 ; 18 records. May 30 

 to June 12. 



Texas: 39 records, April 10 to June 25; 20 records, May 6 to 26 

 (Harris). 



ICTERIA VIRENS AURICOLLIS Lichtenstein 



WESTERN YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT 



HABITS 



The western race of the yellow-breasted chat is only slightly differ- 

 entiated from its well-known eastern relative. Ridgway (1902) de- 

 scribes it as "similar to /. v. virens^ but wing, tail, and bill longer, the 

 tail always, or nearly always, longer than wing, instead of the re- 

 verse ; upper parts more grayish olive-green, usually more nearly gray 

 than olive-green; white of malar region much more extended, fre- 

 quently occupying entire malar area ; yellow of under parts averaging 

 deeper." 



It is well distributed, generally common, and locally abundant over 

 much of North America during the breeding season from the Pacific 

 coast to the Plains, and from British Columbia and extreme southern 

 Saskatchewan to the Mexican plateau. Only within comparatively 

 recent years has the chat been known to breed across the southern 

 boundary in Saskatchewan, south of the Cypress Hills. Although 

 Dr. Bishop, Dr. Dwight, and I did considerable field work in this 

 region and in southern Alberta in 1906, we failed to find it. Some 

 years later, Laurence B. Potter wrote to me : "Since the first discovery 

 of the yellow-breasted chat by Taverner, in 1921, in southwestern 

 Saskatchewan, the species has established itself as a regular, and not 

 uncommon, summer visitant. For twenty years previous to Taver- 

 ner's taking the first specimen, I had lived in the same district, watch- 

 ing and hearing birds ; but it was not until 1922, a year later, that I 

 first heard a chat, the male bird of a pair that certainly were nesting. 

 And I feel quite sure the species was, at that time, a newcomer." Some 



