A CHAT COURTSHIP 285 
and finally found the bird yards away from the spot whence 
its go-as-you-please voice seemed to come. 
““A Chat courtship,” says Mr. A. C. Webb, in “Some 
Birds, and their Ways,” “‘is a sight never to be forgotten. In 
the spring, when birds begin housekeeping, the male Chat 
charms himself and his mate by some remarkable perform- 
ances in the air.. Launching himself from the top of some 
tall tree, he flutters from side to side, flirts his tail, stops, 
stands on his head, dangles his legs as if they were broken, 
turns somersaults, and makes a monkey of himself generally, 
as he descends to the thicket below, where his mate is perched 
among the briers. Sometimes he starts from the low bushes 
and rises almost straight up into the air until he is above the 
tree-tops. He chatters and screams as he goes, telling her 
to watch him now as he comes down, and see if in all her life 
she ever saw a bird that could do such wonderful feats. No 
doubt to her eyes he is the picture of grace and elegance as he 
performs on his flying trapeze, but to us his clownlike antics 
seem ridiculous.” 
The Chat of the East is represented in the Far West by a 
long-tailed variety, and between the two their range covers 
nearly the whole of the United States, British Columbia and 
Mexico. 
Tue AmericaAN Repstart! looks like a small, pinkish- 
yellow understudy of the Baltimore oriole, 514 inches long. 
Its colors and color pattern are very similar to those of our 
old friend of the elm trees, velvety black on the back and head, 
reddish orange on the sides and breast and white on the 
1 Se-toph’a-ga ru-ti-cil'la. Length, 5.50 inches. 
