456 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Granville, June 17, 1890, F. T. Pember; Chili, May 26, 1890, E. H. 

 Short; Branchport, June 13, 1899, Stone, Auk, 16:285; Castleton, June 

 1897, nest and eggs in State Museum; Ithaca, 1900 to 19 10, Fuertes, 

 Wright and Allen; Penn Yan, July 8, 1900, Verdi Burtch; Monroe county, 

 June 2, 1902, E. H. Short; Cincinnatus, June 25, 1902, H. C. Higgins; 

 Peterboro, June 17, 1877, adult male but no nest reported, Gerritt S. 

 Miller jr, Maxon, Auk, 20:266; South hill, Canandaigua lake, July 5, 

 1906, Burtch, Stone and Eaton; Oneonta, summer of 1900, W. E. Yager; 

 Coming, summer 1902, George P. Hollister. 



Haunts and habits. The Chat is not a bird of the dense woodland 

 or of open situations, but is confined to thick coverts of shrubs, vines and 

 young saplings, preferring a denser covert than even the Chestnut-sided 

 warbler and the Catbird. It is rarely seen far from such situations and 

 its distribution will depend on the presence of dense tangles of vines and 

 shrubbery or thick growth of brush where the forest has recently been 

 cut on some hillside pasture or where bushes are allowed to grow up in 

 confusion upon the hillside or in some bit of swamp or bunch of rocks. 

 Though the Chat is so averse to being seen, he will sometimes be found 

 even within the limits of our villages and cities where suitable thickets 

 of considerable extent are found and his loud song is frequently heard 

 from the village streets and sidewalks. " The voice of this bird is flexible 

 to an almost unlimited degree. It has no notes suggesting its place among 

 the warblers. Perhaps the commonest note is a harsh, rather nasal chuck, 

 often prolonged into chiick-iick. The song is almost impossible to describe. 

 It begins with two slow, deep notes; then follows one high-pitched and 

 interrogative note; then several, rapid and even, and from that point on 

 to the end, I have never been able to give any rendering of the clucking 

 and gurgling that completes the long song. As far as I have described, 

 it may be rendered thus: quoort-quoort ! whee? whew-whew-whew I " (Alli- 

 son, Chapman " Warblers of North America "). Bicknell notes the song 

 period from the date of arrival to the third or even the fourth week of 

 July, quite regularly to the middle of the month. An imperfect song is 



