HABITS OF CHATS H19 



variety, come now from this and now from that spot in the 

 bushes, shifting from point to point as we peer eagerly into the 

 tangled underbrush to catch a glimpse of the tantalizing musi- 

 cian. Such restlessness, and all this variation in the rendering, 

 have much the effect of ventriloquism, and we have not seldom 

 to acknowledge that the Chat has fairly beaten us. But his 

 coloring is brilliant 5 he has, moreover, a fancy to return again 

 to some particular spot already chosen as his stage ; so that if 

 we discover it, and keep so still as not to cause the bird anxiety, 

 nor yet to rouse his ire, we shall most likely see him take his 

 stand again to swell his golden throat afresh with the fantasy 

 of song. 



His nuptial song, I should observe, is something very different 

 from the medley of sounds, not all of which are pleasing, that 

 are heard when each Chat, as one performer in the orchestra, 

 first tunes his curious pipe. Such prelude, after several days 7 

 essay, is changed into the rich, voluminous ode with which the 

 bird inaugurates a new order of events, in bursts of almost 

 startling eloquence and fervor. For the nesting-place is fixed 

 upon, the fabric hastens to completion j and the exultant bird, 

 no longer constrained to the lowliness of the coverts, mounts 

 buoyantly from bough to bough of some tall sentinel that 

 guards the leafy undergrowth, to sound his exultation from the 

 very tree-top. Yet once more : the nest now bears its precious 

 burden ; the brooding bird assumes her patient place, and 

 presses down her golden breast upon her hopes. Then this 

 strange bird goes fairly wild with joy ; he spurns the ground, 

 the favorite singing-post no longer bids him welcome, he rises 

 on the wing, and in mid-air above the nest, with fluttering pin- 

 ions, down-stretched legs, and open beak, he poises, hovers, and 

 performs a thousand antics in the sheer abandon of his 

 eccentricity. 



Such are the Chat's most characteristic actions during the 

 heyday of his life ; and when we see him cutting such capers, 

 we may be sure the nest is not far off. It is one of the birds- 

 nests most easily found as easily as a Catbird's or a Thrasher's. 

 You can hardly miss it if you go carefully through the brier- 

 patch or blackberry field, the tangle of smilax and grape-vine, 

 or the old pasture grown up to oak bushes. It is a rather bulky 

 and decidedly primitive affair, set in the bush so low you may 

 usually look down into it, and made up of withered leaves, 

 bark-strips, rootlets, and hay not unlike a Catbird's, smaller 



