YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 
ICTERIA VIRIDIS. 
S one approaches the haunts of the yellow-breasted 
chat, the old rule for children is reversed,— he is 
everywhere heard, nowhere seen. Seek him ever so slyly 
where the ear has just detected him, instantly you hear 
him elsewhere; and this with no sign of a flight. The 
chat revels in eccentricities. Some tones of his loud 
voice are musical, others are harsh; and he delights in 
uttering the two kinds in the same breath, occasionally 
slipping in the notes of other birds and, on some au- 
thorities, imitating those of quadrupeds. I have discov- 
ered in his medleys snatches from the robin, cat-bird, 
oriole, kingfisher, and brown thrasher. Wilson refers to 
his “great variety of odd and uncouth monosyllables.” 
I have detected three such, “char,” “quirp,” and “whir;” 
and they were given with distinctness. 
The male birds, generally preceding the females in their 
migrations, locate and at once begin a series of vocal 
and gymnastic exercises. A marked example of these 
performances is a jerky flight straight upward perhaps 
fifty feet, and a descent in the same fussy fashion. The 
favorite time is just before dusk; but if there be a moon, 
a carousal of some sort goes on all night,—the evident 
