592 BULLETIN 2 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



He laughs dryly, gurgles derisively, whistles triumphantly, chatters provokingly, 

 and chuckles complacently, all in one breath. He throws himself about through 

 the bush regardless of consequences, never still, scrutinizing the intruder in all 

 attitudes. Viewing him now from under a branch, and then from over it, talk- 

 ing always exictedly, rather incoherently and usually indelicately. In fact, one 

 throat is not sufficient to relieve the pressure of his feelings, and he presses into 

 service his long tail, and with it wig-wags things such as even he, irresponsible 

 little sprite that he is, dare not say out loud. 



The chat has a well-deserved reputation for shyness and elusiveness. 

 When the nest is approached, the incubating female will usually slip 

 off it and away without being observed; and she has been said to 

 desert her eggs, or even her young, on slight provocation. But this 

 is not always the case, as is shown by the many excellent photographs 

 that have been taken of the bird at its nest. A. D. Du Bois tells me 

 that on three out of nine of the nests examined by him, the sitting 

 bird was quite tame, allowing him to approach quite closely and, in 

 one case, almost to touch her. Gradual and careful approach to the 

 nest gave Petrides (1938) an opportunity to take some fine pictures 

 and to study the home life of the chat. "The blind, a green umbrella 

 tent six and one-half feet high, was first erected some eighteen feet 

 from the nest and moved forward about four feet every other day 

 until, when the eggs were hatched, the tent was only two and one-half 

 feet from the nest. On each visit several leaves were plucked from 

 before the nest until it was well exposed." 



His second nest "was approached noisily through the underbrush 

 on six different occasions and the contents lifted out and handled," 

 but the birds did not desert it. 



Voice. — To the comments already made on the chat's vocal perform- 

 ances must be added the more serious contribution of Aretas A. Saun- 

 ders, who says : "The song of the yellow-breasted chat is not only en- 

 tirely unlike that of any other warbler, but unlike that of any other 

 bird with which I am acquainted. It is long-continued, and consists 

 of a variety of notes and phrases delivered in an irregular, mixed 

 order, with pauses between them. The phrases vary greatly in qual- 

 ity, consisting of whistles, harsh cackles, squawks, squeals, and various 

 explosive noises, not always easy to describe. Some of these are single 

 short notes, short series of notes, or long series, often retarded in time. 



"The pitches of these various sounds range from B' to A'", almost 

 two octaves. Songs of individual birds range from three and a half 

 tones to seven and a half, averaging about an octave. The songs are 

 sometimes fairly rapid, and at other times slow. I have one song 

 recorded as 7 phrases in 9 seconds, and another where the average pause 

 between phrases was 6 seconds. 



"I have records from 20 different birds, but only those of 11 are be- 

 lieved to be complete, that is, all the phrases commonly used are re- 



