YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 211 



the -wings of a duck or teal, beginning loud and rapid, and falling 

 lower and slower till they end in detached notes ; then a succession of 

 others, something like the barking of young puppies, is followed by a 

 variety of hollow guttural sounds, each eight or ten times repeated, more 

 like those proceeding from the throat of a quadruped than that of a 

 bird ; which are succeeded by others not unlike the mewing of a cat, 

 but considerably hoarser. All these are uttered with great vehemence, 

 in such different keys, and with such peculiar modulations of voice, as 

 sometimes to seem at a considerable distance and instantly as if just 

 beside you ; now on this hand, now on that ; so that from these 

 manoeuvres of ventriloquism you are utterly at a loss to ascertain from 

 what particular spot or quarter they proceed. If the weather be mild 

 and serene, with clear moonlight, he continues gabbling in the same 

 strange dialect, with very little intermission, during the whole night, as 

 if disputing with his own echoes ; but probably with a design of inviting 

 the passing females to his retreat ; for when the season is farther 

 advanced they are seldom heard during the night. 



About the middle of May they begin to build. Their nest is usually 

 fixed in the upper part of a bramble bush, in an almost impenetrable 

 thicket ; sometimes in a thick vine or small cedar ; seldom more than 

 four or five feet from the ground. It ia composed outwardly of dry 

 leaves, within these are laid thin strips of the bark of grape-vines, and 

 the inside is lined with fibrous roots of plants, and fine dry grass. The 

 female lays four eggs, slightly flesh colored, and speckled all over with 

 spots of brown or dull red. The young are hatched in twelve days ; 

 and make their first excursion from the nest about the second week in 

 June. A friend of mine, an amateur in Canary birds, placed one of the 

 Chat's eggs under a hen Canary, who brought it out ; but it died on 

 the second day ; though she was so solicitous to feed and preserve it, 

 tliat her own eggs, which required two days more sitting, were lost 

 through her attention to this. 



While the female of the Chat is sitting, the cries of the male are still 

 more loud and incessant. When once aware that you have seen him he 

 is less solicitous to conceal himself; and will sometimes mount up into 

 the air, almost perpendicularly to the height of thirty or forty feet, with 

 his legs hanging ; descending, as he rose, by repeated jerks, as if highly 

 irritated, or as is vulgarly said "dancing mad." All this noise and 

 gesticulation we must attribute to his extreme afi'eetion for his mate and 

 young ; and when we consider the great distance which in all probability 

 he comes, the few young produced at a time, and that seldom more than 

 once in the season, we can see the wisdom of Providence very manifestly 

 in the ardency of his passions. 



Catesby seems to have first figured the Yellow-breasted Chat ; and 

 the singularity of its manners has not escaped him. After repeated 



