THE YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 



COMMON name for this 

 bird, the largest of the warb- 

 lers, is the Yellow Mocking- 

 bird. It is found in the 

 eastern United States, 

 north to the Connecticut Valley and 

 Great Lakes ; west to the border of the 

 Great Plains ; and in winter in eastern 

 Mexico and Guatemala. It frequents 

 the borders of thickets, briar patches, 

 or wherever there is a low, dense 

 growth of bushes — the thornier and 

 more impenetrable the better. 



"After an acquaintance of many 

 years," says Frank M. Chapman, "I 

 frankly confess that the character of 

 the Yellow -Crested Chat is a mystery 

 to me. While listening to his strange 

 medley and watching his peculiar 

 actions, we are certainly justified in 

 calling him eccentric, but that there 

 is a method in his madness no one wdio 

 studies him can doubt.'" 



By many observers this bird is 

 dubbed clown or harlequin, so peculiar 

 are his antics or somersaults in the air; 

 and by others " mischief maker," 

 because of his ventriloquistic and 

 imitating powers, and the variety of his 

 notes. In the latter direction he is 

 surpassed only by the Mockingbird. 



The mewing of a cat, the barking of 

 a dog, and the whistling sound pro- 

 duced by a Duck's wings when flying, 

 though much louder, are common 

 imitations with him. The last can 

 be perfectly imitated by a good 

 whistler, bringing the bird instantly to 

 the spot, where he will dodge in and 

 out among the bushes, uttering, if the 

 whistling be repeated, a deep toned 

 emphatic tac^ or hollow, resonant 

 vicoiv. 



In the mating season he is the nois- 

 iest bird in the woods. At this time 

 he may be observed in his wonderful 

 aerial evolutions, dangling his legs 

 and flirting his tail, singing vocifer- 



ously the while — a sweet song differ- 

 ent from all his jests and jeers — and 

 descending by odd jerks to the thicket. 

 After a few weeks he abandons these 

 clown-like maneuvers and becomes a 

 shy, suspicious haunter of the depths 

 of the thicket, contenting himself in/ 

 taunting, teasing, and misleading, by 

 his variety of calls, any bird, beast, or 

 human creature within hearing. 



All these notes are uttered with 

 vehemence, and with such strange and 

 various modulations as to appear near 

 or distant, in the manner of a ventril- 

 oquist. In mild weather, during 

 moonlight nights, his notes are heard 

 regularly, as though the performer 

 were disputing with the echoes of his 

 own voice. 



" Perhaps I ought to be ashamed to 

 confess it," says Mr. Bradford Torrey, 

 after a visit to the Senate and House 

 of Representatives at Washington, 

 " but after all, the congressman in 

 feathers interested me most. I thought 

 indeed, that the Chat might well 

 enough have been elected to the lower 

 house. His volubility and waggish 

 manners would have made him quite 

 at home in that assembly, while his 

 orange colored waistcoat would have 

 given him an agreeable conspicuity. 

 I3ut, to be sure, he would have needed 

 to learn the use of tobacco." 



The nest of the Chat is built in a 

 thicket, usually in a thorny bush or 

 thick vine five feet above the ground. 

 It is bulky, composed exteriorly of dry 

 leaves, strips of loose grape vine bark, 

 and similar materials, and lined with 

 fine grasses and fibrous roots. The 

 eggs are three to five in number, glossy 

 white, thickly spotted with various 

 shades of rich, reddish brown and 

 lilac ; some specimens however have 

 a greenish tinge, and others a pale 

 pink. 



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