Conspicuously Yellow and Orange 
Yellow-breasted Chat 
(Icteria virens) Wood Warbler family 
Called also: POLYGLOT CHAT ; YELLOW MOCKING-BIRD 
Length—7.5 inches. A trifle over an inch longer than the Eng- 
lish sparrow. 
Male and Female—Uniform olive-green above. Throat, breast, 
and under side of wings bright, clear yellow. Underneath 
white. Sides grayish. White line over the eye, reaching to 
base of bill and forming partial eye-ring. Also white line on 
sides of throat. Bill and feet black. 
Range—North America, from Ontario to Central America and 
westward to the plains. Most common in Middle Atlantic 
States. 
Migrations—Early May. Late August or September. Summer 
resident. 
This largest of the warblers might be mistaken for a dozen 
birds collectively in as many minutes; but when it is known that 
the jumble of whistles, parts of songs, chuckles, clucks, barks, 
quacks, whines, and wails proceed from a single throat, the 
yellow-breasted chat becomes a marked specimen forthwith— 
a conspicuous individual never to be confused with any other 
member of the feathered tribe. It is indeed absolutely unique. 
The catbird and the mocking-bird are rare mimics; but while the 
chat is not their equal in this respect, it has a large repertoire of 
weird, uncanny cries all its own—a power of throwing its voice, 
like a human ventriloquist, into unexpected corners of the thicket 
or meadow. In addition to its extraordinary vocal feats, it can 
turn somersaults and do other clown-like stunts as well as any 
variety actor on the Bowery stage. 
Only by creeping cautiously towards the roadside tangle, 
where this ‘‘ rollicking polyglot” is entertaining himself and his 
mate, brooding over her speckled eggs in a bulky nest set in a 
most inaccessible briery part of the thicket, can you hope to hear 
him rattle through his variety performance. Walk boldly or 
noisily past his retreat, and there is ‘‘silence there and nothing 
more.” But two very bright eyes peer out at you through the 
undergrowth, where the trim, elegant-looking bird watches you 
with quizzical suspicion until you quietly seat yourself and 
206 
