YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 397 



his responses are constant and rapid, strongly expressive of 

 anger and anxiety; and while the bird itself remains unseen, the 

 voice shifts from place to place, among the bushes, as if it pro- 

 ceeded from a spirit. First are heard a repetition of short notes, 

 resembling the whistling of the wings of a duck or teal, begin- 

 ing 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 hol- 

 low 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 mo- 

 dulations of voice, as sometimes to seem at a considerable dis- 

 tance 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 quar- 

 ter 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 is com- 

 posed 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 coloured, 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 



