Yellow- Breasted Chat. 167 



home is dried leaves, mostly whole, and I once counted 

 more than seventy-five whole elm leaves in the base of an 

 ordinary nest. The walls are formed externally of dried 

 weed stems and rounded up internally with stems and 

 bark, besides leaves and other materials interwoven into 

 the sides. The lining is generally fine wiry grass and root- 

 lets. An ordinary nest is about four and a half inches in 

 external diameter, and stands about three and a half inches 

 high in position. The cavity israther less than three inches 

 across the top and about two inches deep. Some nests 

 are made largely of long pieces of creeping plants, the 

 pieces being wound around the nest several times. A set 

 of eggs contains either three or four, and they are glossy 

 or pinkish white, irregularly and variously spotted or 

 specked with bright reddish brown, sometimes with spots 

 larger and more numerous around the larger end. Davie 

 gives 'the average size of ten specimens as .92 by .71 of an 

 inch. 



The chat is a regular victim of the co.wbird, and a nest 

 of the species without eggs of the parasite is an exception 

 hereabouts. The chat does not always accept the impo- 

 sition quietly, however, and frequently pierces the egg of 

 the intruder with its bill and tosses it out of the nest or 

 else deserts the home it has begun. Generally it accepts 

 the conditions it finds in its home after an unlucky 

 absence, and broods the mixture in its nest as jealously as 

 though solely its own product. The female sits on her 

 eggs closely, while the male whistles among the adjacent 

 bushes and lower branches of the trees. He does not go 

 beyond the limits of his domains to deliver his eccentric- 

 ities, but, like the cardinal, he sings his best at home. In- 

 deed, some of his most varied performances are inspired 

 by the happiness he experiences in the little home en- 

 sconced among the subjacent brambles. Eobert Eidgway 

 says: ''During the height of the breeding season the male 

 becomes exceedingly animated and tuneful, ascending, by 

 short flights and jumps, from branch to branch, to the top 

 of a small tree, singing vociferously all the while, and 

 then launching into the air, dangling its legs, and flirting 

 its tail, descends, by odd jerks, to the thicket." 



The nest of the chat can generally be discovered by 



