400 NOTES ON THE 
in the thickets, when they are mostly silent and somewhat 
suspicious. It is not long, however, before their familiar 
notes are heard about our houses, in the currant bushes, and 
in the orchard. In the time of nesting they retire from such 
familiar places to the borders of woods, near damp, swampy 
localities, in dense thickets. Contrary to their reputed pro- 
clivity to the vicinity of farm houses, in the eastern states, 
they avoid them during incubation nearly if not quite uni- 
formly. The earliest nests I have discovered were occupied 
by the 17th of May, although as a general rule, it is a little 
later. They frequently linger till late in September, and an 
instance has occurred when a few of them were seen in Octo- 
ber. Dr. Hvoslef reports them abundant in his section on the 
Sth of May. Mr. Washburn found them common in the Red 
river valley. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Upper parts olive-green, tinged with brown towards the 
middle of the crown; chin, throat and breast as far as the mid- 
dle of the body, and under tail coverts, bright yellow; belly 
dull whitish buff; sides of body strongly tinged with lght 
olive-brown; under coverts glossed with the same;.a band of 
black on the forehead, (about 0.20 of an inch wide in the mid- 
dle) passing backward so as to cover the cheek and ear coverts, 
and extending a little above the eye; this band bordered behind 
by a suffusion of hoary ash, forming a distinct line above the 
eye, and widening behind the ear coverts into a large patch 
with a yellow tinge. 
Length, 5.50; wing, 2.40; tail, 2.20. 
Habitat, eastern United States to the Mississippi river. 
ICTERIA VIRENS. (L.). (683.) 
YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 
This species is a regular summer resident of the southwest- 
ern portion of the State, reaching those sections early in May. 
They are not common, and rarely extend their incursions be- 
yond the lower tier of counties, one or two individuals having 
been obtained in the valley of the St. Peter’s river, and a like 
number observed in Traverse county. Iam familiar with them 
in their western haunts, and have long hoped to have an op- 
portunity to note their habits here, but I have never met with 
them personally in my locality. They are reported by Mr. 
Chas. R. Keyes and Dr. H. S. Williams, of Davenport, Ia., as 
rather common summer residents of that state. In their cata- 
logue of the Birds of Iowa, they say: ‘‘Summer resident, 
