APPENDIX. 191 



Yellow-breasted Chat. 



"As soon as our bird has chosen his retreat, which is commonly in 

 some thorny or viny thicket, where he can obtain concealment, he be- 

 comes jealous of his assumed rights, and resents the least intrusion, 

 scolding all who approach in a variety of odd and uncouth tones, very 

 difficult to describe or imitate, except by a whistling, in which case the 

 bird may be made to approach, but seldom within sight. His responses 

 on such occasions are constant and rapid, expressive of anger and anxiety ; 

 and still unseen, his voice shifts from place to place amidst the thicket, 

 like the haunting of a fairy. Some of these notes resemble the whistling 

 of the wings of a flying duck, at first loud and rapid, then sinking till they 

 seem to end in single notes. A succession of other tones are now heard, 

 some like the barking of young puppies, with a variety of hollow, guttural, 

 uncommon sounds, frequently repeated, and terminated occasionally by 

 something like the mewing of a cat, but hoarser, — a tone to which all our 

 vireos, particularly the young, have frequent recurrence. All these notes 

 are uttered with vehemence, and with such strange and various modula- 

 tions as to appear near or distant, like the manoeuvres of ventriloquism.^ 

 In mild weather also, when the moon shines, this gabbling, with exuber- 

 ance of life and emotion, is heard nearly throughout the night, as if the 

 performer were disputing with the echoes of his own voice." — Nuttall, T. : 

 Manual of Ornithology, p. 340. 



Bobolink. (See p. 82.) ' 



" Have tried on the bobolink. Found him, as I antici- 

 pated, impossible to copy fully, but I can make out his 

 pitch,'-^ and some of his notes. One must be very quick 

 to decide on the intervals in a bird-song; I have much 

 improved in it, and I was tolerably apt when I took 'em 



1 See Index, Ventriloquism. 



2 Mr. Cheney took the pitch with a little reed instrument made for 

 the purpose. It is about five inches long and two inches wide. The 

 tones are, — 



1 ^, r r r "r r ^ ^^ 



