FIELD AND STUDY 



birds. Their enemies are so many, and the young 

 are so defenseless, that the sooner they get out and 

 scatter and hide, the better it is for them. My spar- 

 rows would doubtless have remained several days 

 yet had not my blundering experiment hastened 

 matters. I had set in action the force of a natural 

 instinct before the conditions were quite ripe for it. 



Less than one hundred yards from the sparrow's 

 nest I had the good fortune to find the nest of a 

 yellow-breasted chat, one of the shyest and most 

 elusive of our birds. The catbird, the chewink, and 

 the brown thrasher, all skulkers and hiders, do 

 not approach the chat in this respect. It haunts 

 low, bushy fields and tangled, swampy retreats, 

 whence, in May and June, issue the strange, inter- 

 rupted, polyglot cat-calls of the* male. But to see 

 him or his mate, you have got to out-skulk him, and 

 that is no easy task. He is a fine, strong-looking 

 bird, with his deep olive-green coat and yellow 

 breast and black, curved bill, and black feet and 

 legs. He is one of the hide-and-seek birds. His weird 

 calls have a tantalizing air of secrecy and elusive- 

 ness, as if to challenge your curiosity, changing from 

 the quack of a duck to the mew of a cat or the caw 

 of a crow or the bark of a fox or the rattle of the 

 kingfisher. 



When you penetrate his retreat he suddenly 

 ceases and begins manoeuvring to see you without 

 being seen. In the present case I knew a pair had. 



