Song Birds and Water Fowl 
certainly never incur the curse pronounced 
upon lukewarmness, for he looks simultane- 
ously cold and hot, in the dead black and white 
of the body, and the fiery orange of the head 
and breast. ‘The slender, neck-laced Canada 
warbler was among the most abundant, and 
singing his long and sprightly strain, of which, 
however, he does not seem to have quite mas- 
tered the rhythm. But the novelty of the day 
was the yellow-breasted chat ; for I had never 
had the good fortune, until this morning, to 
hear the vocal antics of this oddity of genius, 
this crooked stick in ornithology. I am sure 
that Nature was in a merry, saucy mood 
when she devised this fellow’s numerous eccen- 
tricities. Externally, indeed, she took great 
pains with him, for he looks quite fit to be a 
ladies’ man, so unutterably immaculate and 
elegant. But when she proceeded to fit him up 
interiorly, she gave him vocalizing powers that 
are decidedly on the slap-dash order ; and the 
outcome is more incoherent and incongruous 
than the medley of the catbird or the thrasher. 
He whistles, and grunts, and bubbles so con- 
fusedly, that the listener cannot but wonder 
what droll vagary he will next perpetrate. His 
accompanying gymnastics and wild careerings 
32 
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