112 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



than choice, as the white-footed mouse generally so uses 

 and abuses the old nest, during the autumn and winter, 

 that it is usually demolished before the return of the 

 birds the next spring. Now, I have noticed for years 

 that the chats are full of song and very active until the 

 young birds are able to leave the nest ; and then it usu- 

 ally happens that within a week or ten days the whole 

 family will leave the neighborhood. 



After the middle of July and throughout August I 

 miss them from localities where for ten weeks previously 

 their curious medley of sweet and discordant notes was 

 constantly heard during the live-long day, and often for 

 half the night. This absence of these birds was no fancy 

 upon my part, caused by their silence, for many birds 

 cease singing when nesting is well over, but was abso- 

 lutely true of them. Careful search failed to trace them, 

 as they had evidently left the neighborhood. The six 

 weeks of summer following the middle of July prove to 

 be an interval not in the summer sojourn of those that 

 nested here, though it seemed so, because the chats that 

 about September 1st appear again in our woods and 

 thickets are not our old friends, but are new-comers that 

 have reached us from more northern localities. Those 

 that nested here, returned to their winter homes when 

 nesting was over ; while those that are seen here in Sep- 

 tember are those that, having nested farther to the north 

 and later in the season, are now on their return to their 

 wi n t er-quarters. 



Thus, it will be seen that the chats that nested in the 

 valley of the Delaware River returned south as soon as 

 nesting was over ; while a little later, the birds from the 

 Hudson and Connecticut River Valleys came hither and 

 occupied, for a brief period, the then chat-deserted Dela- 

 ware Valley. These again proceed leisurely, in their 



