YELLOW-BfcEASTED CHAT. 



There is no more tone to this bird's voice than there is 

 to that of the Oven-bird; consequently I can not say 

 that the intervals as I render them represent true pitch. 

 All I can promise is, that the swing of the Maryland 

 Yellow-throat's voice is accurately reported in the shape 

 in which it reached my ear. 



Yellow- The Chat is the largest member of the 



breasted Chat Warbler Family, and an eccentric charac- 



Jctcrid cirens , , -, . , .. 



L. 7.45 inches ter m " ie ^ ar S est sense of the word. His 

 May ist colors are bright. Upper parts olive 



green; a broad white line extends from the nostril over 

 and back of the eye; region in front of and below the 

 eye elaty black graded to olive; eye-ring white; throat 

 and chest bright cadmium yellow fading to white on the 

 under parts; sides gray-olive. Female similarly marked. 

 Nest a rather bulky affair built of dead leaves, coarse 

 grasses, and bark fibre well interwoven, and lined with 

 liner material of the same nature; it is lodged in tangled 

 undergrowth, near the ground. This bird is distributed 

 from the Gulf States to Massachusetts and Southern 

 Minnesota; it winters in Central America. It is shy, 

 retiring, and chooses the dense thicket for its home. 

 I find it fairly common in the vicinity of New York and 

 southward, but I have never seen it near Boston. 



The song of the Yellow-breasted Chat scarcely de- 

 serves the name, and it would be a hopeless task to give 

 any truthful idea of it by means of the musical staff. 

 In the line of music, he can, however, give us an excel- 

 lent ritardando and diminuendo, a time arrangement 

 exactly the reverse of that of the Field Sparrow; but 

 one cannot call such a series of clucks musical: 



S ritdrd. et dim p 



rrrrrrrrrrr r r r r r r 



It is proper to say of this performance that it is a com- 

 bination of voice tones without either key or pitch. 

 Certain strange and sudden monosyllables of the bird 

 203 



