398 YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 



and preserve it, that 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 vul- 

 garly said " dancing mad." All this noise and gesticulation we 

 must attribute to his extreme affection for his mate and young; 

 and when we consider the great distance which in all probabili- 

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

 more than once in the season, we can see the wisdom of provi- 

 dence 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 attempts to shoot one of them, he found himself com- 

 pletely baffled: and was obliged, as he himself informs us, to 

 employ an Indian for that purpose, who did not succeed with- 

 out exercising all his ingenuity. Catesby also observed its 

 dancing manoeuvres, and supposed that it always flew with its 

 legs extended; but it is only in these paroxysms of rage and 

 anxiety that this is done, as I have particularly observed. 



The food of these birds consists chiefly of large black beetles, . 

 and other coleopterous insects; I have also found whortle-berries 

 frequently in their stomach, in great quantities; as well as several 

 other sorts of berries. They are very numerous in the neigh-* 

 bourhood of Philadelphia, particularly on the borders of rivu- 

 lets, and other watery situations, in hedges, thickets, &c. but 

 are seldom seen in the forest, even where there is under- 

 wood. Catesby indeed asserts, that they are only found on the 

 banks of large rivers, two or three hundred miles from the sea; 

 but though this may be the case in South Carolina, yet in Mary- 

 land and New Jersey, and also in New York, I have met with 

 these birds within two hours' walk of the sea, and in some pla- 

 ces within less than a mile of the shore. I have not been able 

 to trace him to any of the West India islands; though they cer- 



