582 THE YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 



flexible skeletons of leaves, as an external framework of the 

 wall of felt, and a few slender, wiry circles of horse-hair, 

 perhaps, to make the soft interior symmetrical. Often, 

 perhaps generally, the nest is so placed that when it is re- 

 moved from its limb or crotch, the lower part of the inverted 

 conical form is truncate, or nearly bottomless, excepting the 

 soft lining. The rim of the nest is generally contracted or 

 " purse-like," rendering the eggs secure in heavy winds. 

 But the most marked feature of this structure is its orna- 

 mentation. The whole exterior is closely covered with 

 small, brightly colored lichens commonly of a greenish- 

 gray. Thus the nest of this species is more beautiful than 

 that of the Wood Pewee, and fully equal to that of the 

 Hummingbird. Like these, it is in such close conformity 

 to the lichen-covered limb on which it is placed as to seem 

 a mere natural excrescence. Very fine grasses and vege- 

 table downs constitute the body of the nest. The 4-6 eggs, 

 some .58X.44, are roundish, and bluish-white, thickly 

 and prettily specked with dark-brown and lilac all over. 



THE YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 



In the locality now under consideration, I first made the 

 acquaintance of that eccentric bird, the Yellow-breasted 

 Chat (Icteria virens). Some 7.00 long and 9.00 in extent, 

 and somewhat resembling the Tanagers in form, it has the 

 whole upper parts of a rich, deep olive-green; tips of the 

 wings and inner vanes of the wing and tail-feathers, dusky; 

 throat and breast, brilliant yellow, this color also washing 

 the sides and lining the wings; belly and vent, white; front, 

 slaty or dusky; lores, black; eye-brow, and nearly all the 

 eye-lid, and spot at the gape, white. The sexes are scarcely 

 distinguishable. 



This beautiful and interesting species resorts to the past- 



