THE YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 185 



or marshy weed-lots, or over-grown fences running through lowland meadows, 

 there are they. The male spends much time singing, seeking for the purpose 

 the summit of a weed-stalk or a flowering shrub, or occasionally mounting a 

 sapling twenty or thirty feet high. Witchity, wichity, wichity, or "I beseech 

 you, I beseech you, I beseech you" , sounds forth at intervals in sharp anatriptic 

 notes which pierce the morning chorus for a hundred yards. 



Meanwhile the plainly attired but dainty female is weaving a bulky nest 

 in some weed-clump or grass-tussock hard by. Sometimes it is sunk in the 

 center of a tussock almost to the level of the ground. At others it is lodged 

 in the spreading branches of a bush, or else the crowded heads of certain 

 plants are brought together and made both to support and shelter the tightly- 

 woven structure. The nest is a model of strength, and notwithstanding its 

 usual bulkiness, is well moulded and neatly lined within. According to Dr. 

 Jones the male bird assists somewhat in the construction of the nest, and 

 both birds watch over it with jealous care. Two broods are commonly 

 reared during the season, one in May and another in July. When the nest 

 is threatened, or indeed at any time when intruders are about, the birds give 

 frequent voice to a most peculiar and distinctive note, a sort of Polish conso- 

 nantal explosion, wsschthub — a sound not unlike that made by a guitar string 

 when it is struck above the stop. 



No. 84. 



YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 



A. O. U. No. 683. Icteria virens (Linn.). 



Description. — Adult male : Above dull olive-green ; fuscous on exposed 

 inner webs of wings and tail ; a prominent line above lores and eye, a short malar 

 stripe, and eye-ring, white ; enclosed space black on lores, less pure behind ; throat, 

 breast, lining of wings, and upper sides rich gamboge yellow; lower belly and 

 crissum abruptly white; sides washed with brownish; bill black; feet plumbeous. 

 Adult male : Very similar ; bill lighter ; lores and cheek-patch dusky rather 

 than black ; black appreciably lighter. Young : Dull olive above ; head markings 

 of adult faintly indicated; below grayish white, darker on breast, huffier behind. 

 Length 6.75-7.50 ( 171. 5-190.5); wing 3.01 (76.5) ; tail 3.01 (76.5) ; bill .53 (13.5). 



Recognition Marks. — Strictly "Sparrow" size, but because of bright color 

 having nearer the size value of Chewink; — the largest of the Warblers. Bright 

 yellow breast with contrasting white below, with size, distinctive. 



Nest, placed in thickets, preferably briar, three to five feet from ground, com- 

 posed outwardly of dried grass-stems and weed-stalks, centrally of layers of dried 



