AT LINDEN BEND. 19 



view of the bird, and was much interested in its strange 

 actions. At irregular intervals it threw back its head, 

 and with its beak pointing directly upward, uttered a 

 peculiar and rather faint duck! that recalled the cry 

 of a night-heron when a long way off. Had I not seen 

 the bird, I should never have imagined the sound was 

 uttered within a boat's -length of me. Ventriloquism, 

 however, is not confined to the yellow-breasted chat. 



Chats were unusually abundant two months ago, along 

 the hill -side, and, indeed, wherever blackberry canes 

 were densely clustered. Their singing, if one may call 

 it that, was amusing, but became tiresome at last, and 

 fairly annoying at times, when the strains of the thrush 

 and rose-breasted grosbeak were marred by it. 



One of these chats selected a branch of a small locust 

 in the garden as his perch, and with all the regularity 

 of clock-work, amused his nesting mate, throughout the 

 gloaming, by his endless series of strange utterances and 

 curious antics. His ventriloquial power was remark- 

 able. It suggested the following : 



A mournful cry from the thicket here, 



A scream from the fields afar; 

 The chirp of a summer warbler near, 

 Of a spring- tide song a bar; 

 Then rattle and rasp, 



A groan, a laugh, 

 Till we fail to grasp 



These sounds, by half, 



That come from the throat of the ghostly chat, 

 An imp, if there is one, be sure of that. 



Aloft in the sunny air he springs; 

 To his timid mate he calls; 



