THE WESTERN CHAT. me we 
the white brow-stripe and the malar dash, offset by black and darker olive. 
It is a warbler in color-pattern, a Yellow-throat done larger, but waggish, 
furtive, impudent, and resourceful beyond any other of his kind. 
The full song of the Chat is usually delivered from some elevation, a 
solitary tree rearing itself above dense cover. The music almost defies 
analysis, for it is full of surprises, vocal somersaults, and whimsy turns. 
Its cadence is ragtime, and its richest phrases are punctuated by flippant 
jests and droll parentheses. Even in the tree-top the singer clings closely 
to the protecting greenery, whence he pitches headlong into the thicket at 
the slightest intimation of approach. 
The love song of the Chat, the so-called “dropping song,” is one of the 
choicest of avian comedies, for it is acted as well as sung. The performer 
flings himself into mid-air, flutters upward for an instant with head upraised 
and legs abjectly dangling, then slowly sinks on hovering wing, with tail 
swinging up and down like a mad pump-handle. Punch, as Cupid, smitten 
with the mortal sickness. And all this while the zany pours out a flood of 
tumultuous and heart-rending song. He manages to recover as he nears 
the brush, and his fianceé evidently approves of this sort of buffoonery. 
The Chat is a skilled mimic. I have traced the notes of such diverse 
species as Bullock Oriole, Slender-billed Nuthatch, and Magpie to his door. 
Once, down on the Rio Grande, we rapped on a vine-covered cottonwood 
stump to dislodge a Flicker that had been shrieking K/yak at us for some 
minutes past, and we flushed a snickering Chat. 
The Western Chat, like the eastern bird, has small taste for architecture. 
A careless mass of dead leaves and coarse grasses is assembled in a bush at 
a height of three or four feet, and a lining of finer grasses, when present at 
all, is so distinct as to permit of removal without injury to the bulk of the 
structure. From three to five eggs are laid and so jealously guarded that 
the birds are said to destroy the eggs once visited by man. So cautious are 
the Chats that even after the young have hatched out, they take care not to 
be seen in the vicinity of their nest, but a low, anxious chuck sometimes 
escapes from the harassed mother in a neighboring thicket. 
Chats will follow suitable cover into most desolate places. On the 
other hand they do not discriminate against civilization per se, and the 
Chats of Cannon Hill, in Spokane, are as grateful to the good sense of 
its citizens as are the Catbirds and two score other resident species of song- 
sters. They are, however, birds of the sunshine belt, and West-side records 
are very few. 
