300 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



divided by narrow winding valleys or ' runs,' nearly all of which carry small 

 streams or are moist at the least. The larger, flat surfaces away from the shore 

 caused by filling in of old pond-basins are, at the present day, either grass fields, 

 or, if left wild, maple swamps, in neither of which Chats are to be expected. 

 The dry, bare, upland pasture land with its barberry clumps and ground junipers 

 may also be disregarded. In moist corners of old fields bordering on the woods, 

 where, protected from the winds and encouraged by ample moisture and the 

 warm sun, vegetation is at its best, or else at the end or side of a ' run,' our 

 Chats are usually found, no matter how near to a road or house. We have 

 found a Chat's nest within twenty feet of the highroad. One pair has bred for 

 ten years in an old lot just back of a cluster of cottages. Children are continu- 

 ally at play in this lot, and yet the Chats come year after year to this old home, 

 although seemingly equally good and quiet spots are near at hand." 



" For a building site the Chat selects almost any deciduous bush, not 

 always a thick one, — once an old burnt bush was taken. The bush usually 

 stands on the edge of a clump. I have not met with Chats nesting in tangles 

 of brush and smilax, as they are stated to do in the South. The nest is well 

 concealed from nearly every side, yet from the exposed quarter it can frequently 

 be seen for forty feet. The height of the nest from the ground is from two to 

 four feet. One nest found on June 12th, 1881, was placed in a clump of shoots 

 where they started from an old stump flush with the ground, such as a Brown 

 Thrush would have built in. One second clutch of three eggs we have found, all 

 others were of four each. 



The nest is rather loosely made, outwardly of coarse grasses, weeds, and 

 pieces of bark, inside this a body of dried leaves and then a lining of fine grass 

 or weeds. It is quite large and deeply hollowed .... The birds must mate as 

 soon as they arrive, and build at once, as nests with full sets are sometimes 

 found the last of May .... While it is impossible to prove that the same pair 

 of Chats returns year after year to the same spot, yet this inuch we can state : 

 namely, that year after year a pair of Chats comes to a fixed locality, and each 

 year a new nest is built, often not fifty feet from the site of the previous year's 

 nest. One large field of about twenty acres is seemingly good building ground 

 for Chats throughout ; for many years two pairs of Chats have built in this 

 field, but invariably in one corner and careful search has failed to reward us 

 with a nest in any other part of this field. Several nests have been found in 

 isolated spots one year, and, although not disturbed by us, the bird did not 

 return the following year .... The young once hatched, the birds are quiet 

 and lost to sight, soon taking their way to the far South." 



Mr. H. A. Purdie tells me that he has found the Chat in the breeding 

 season in Essex. 



