AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 245 



On May 9th, I went to the place nearest my home where I heard one 

 calling. I found myself in the center of a little tract of wild ground, 

 probably an acre, surrounded by thickets and shrubbery of many kinds 

 but mostly buck bushes and dogwood. I sat down and waited making 

 no attempt to conceal myself. I thought it useless. The male chat 

 saw me long before I saw him. By watching him I soon located the 

 female. She had a fine hair like straw in her bill. She made no 

 attempt to conceal herself but flew up into a dogwood and from thence 

 across an open space straight to the thicket where a quarter of an hour 

 later I located the nest which was apparently just about completed. It 

 was fastened firmly in the top of a buck bush and was not difficult to 

 find. A mere glance into the thicket revealed it. A week later I re- 

 turned to the nest and it contained three chats' eggs. Pretty little 

 eggs, pinkish white, not too freely sprinkled with brown. There was 

 also another egg about the same size, but bluish white speckled with 

 dark brown and lilac. Is it necessary to say it was a Cowbird's? 

 After locating this nest I had no trouble in finding three others during 

 the two weeks following I found all by merely watching the male bird 

 and that was not difficult, he was always in evidence. I always found 

 him within a radius of 25 yards of the nest, usually half that distance, 

 and he chatted almost incessantly the whole time I was in the vicinity. 

 Three, out of the four nests found contained one Cowbird's egg each, 

 so I conclude the Chat is a frequent victim of this little brown rascal's 

 laziness. All four nests were situated as the first one, in buckbushes. 

 I secured them after the little birds had left and found them to be 

 exactly alike in the material used in their construction. They were 

 two and three-fourths inches in diameter and two and one-fourth deep, 

 inside measurement. The foundation was of coarse grass stems. 

 The nest proper was of grasses, leaves and strips of corn husk lined 

 with fine stiff woody fibers. But to return to the bird. Is he really 

 such a ventriloquist as his biographers would have us believe? My 

 idea of a ventriloquist is, that he has the power, when speaking, of 

 making his voice appear to come from somewhere remote from himself . 

 If the Chat has this power, he has never exhibited it while under my 

 observation. I have always been able to go directly to him by follow- 

 ing the sound of his voice, which is very penetrating and can be heard 

 a quarter of a mile and further. Ventriloquist or not there is nq deny- 

 ing his wonderful vocal powers. 



Edgar Boyee, Waverly, Mo. 



