WESTERN YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT 601 



the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.4 by 17.8, 20.3 by 19.1, 

 18.3 by 15.2, and 19.3 by 14.7 millhneters (Harris) . 



Young. — Mrs. Wheelock's observations (1904) indicate rather rapid 

 feeding by both parents at a nest that she watched : 



On one day, which seemed to be a fair average, when the young were eight days 

 old, they were fed twenty times between five and six a.m., eight times between 

 nine and ten a.m., eleven times between three and four p.m., and seventeen times 

 between five and six p.m. For the first four days there was no visible food in 

 the bill of the adult, and the feeding seemed to be by regurgitation. After that, 

 parts of insects could be seen protruding from his bill, and were given to the 

 young in a fresh state. Beetles, grasshoppers, and butterflies were all in the 

 dietary, and were brought indiscriminately ; but hairless caterpillars seemed 

 to be the favorite food. The adults are said to eat berries, but I saw none 

 brought to the nest for the young. 



Behavior. — Cliat behavior is much the same in the west as in the 

 east, but the following observations on the territorial behavior and 

 daily routine of the long-tailed western chat, by Eric Campbell Kin- 

 sey (1934), are of interest: 



The usual territorial rights, enforced by breeding birds generally, so far as 

 their own species is concerned, obtained markedly with the chats. Each breeding 

 pair appeared to stay strictly within its own territory except when there was 

 a general alarm emanating from a particular territory (such as that occasioned 

 by pilfering jays or hawks), when a number of chats would congregate at that 

 spot to aid in driving away the would-be despoilers. 



Each chat followed a very definite schedule each day. For example, a certain 

 male would appear at dawn on a particular dead branch some fifty feet up in 

 a Cottonwood tree and, after a short song, would then fly down to a deflnitel 

 spot in an adjacent flooded meadow, whereupon satisfying his appetite he 

 would return to the original perch. After remaining there for several minutes, 

 singing, he would repair to a particular branch in the middle of a nearby 

 elderberry bush, drop fi-om there to a certain nettle stalk, cross to the nest where 

 his mate was brooding eggs, and after (presumably) feeding her would again 

 return to the dead branch in the cottonwood. Then he would fly to the irriga- 

 tion ditch for his early morning plunge, return again to the cottonwood branch, 

 preen and complete his toilet ; then down into the meadow for more insects, 

 back to the original cottonwood, again to the elderberry patch, down to the nest, 

 etc. This routine was followed out with little variation throughout the morning. 

 Immediately after mid-day he would descend from the cottonwood to another 

 patch of elderberries on the opposite side and to an adjacent dry meadow where 

 grasshoppers were quite plentiful ; then would again return to the cottonwood, 

 from there drop down to the nest, and, after being satisfied that all was as it 

 should be, would once again return to the cottonwood. The same procedure 

 would be followed all during the afternoon, broken only by a bath in the 

 irrigation ditch just before dusk. The nest was situated due east of the cotton- 

 wood and it was the eastern part of the territory, upon which the sun shone, 

 that he foraged in the morning. In the afternoon the sun was on the west of 

 the cottonwood and it was the western section of the territory that then received 

 his attention. 



This species is apparently as casual as are hummingbirds, so far as their 

 mates are concerned. Again, to illustrate, a certain female was trapped late 



