FAMILY Cuculide. 
Yellow-bill is a trifle larger than the Black-bili, and is 
distinguished readily by the presence of yellow on the 
under mandible, though the rest of the bill is black like | 
that cf the Black-bill. The tail feathers of this species, 
too, are breadly white-tipped. The nest is the roughest 
kind of an affair constructed of bits of sticks, twigs, and 
grasses, and is generally lodged in the branches of a low 
tree or among the bushes. The egg is a light, greenish 
blue. The bird is distributed throughout the East, but 
is less frequent (in the northern part of its range) than 
the Black-bill. 
There is very little to say about the Yellow-bill’s 
music—perhaps the less said the better. Mr. Cheney 
sums up the matter in these few words: ‘‘ The Yellow- 
preasted Chat exhibits the same rhythmic peculiarity in 
his chattings, and so does the Woodpecker drumming on 
a board or dry limb for the mere sound of it; but in 
quality nothing can be compared with this siopping per- 
formance, unless it be that of the loose-mouthed hound 
lapping from a pan of milk.” It is evident that no one 
can improve on that description. The song written out 
should appear about like this, though one could never 
promise that the tone was exactly A: 
Gr.r-r-r-olp,cowlp, cowlp, owlp, _—_alp, olp, 
It begins with a series of gurgling sounds which rap~ 
idly merge into one another, and then runs down in a 
slower and slower succession of syllables sounding Lke 
cowlp, cowlp, cowlp, cowlp, cowlp. It is a perfect 
ritardando which could not be excelled by the Chat 
himself who is an expert at that sort of thing. 
The Yellow-bill is a solemn, silent-winged bird devoted 
to the interests of the orchard ; if there are plenty of 
tent caterpillars he is happy and will do some execution 
in a remarkably short space of time. Mr. Chapman 
writes that in examining the contents of the stomach of 
one of these birds he found * the partially digested re- 
mains of forty-three of these caterpillars.” 
15 
