CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT, CAT-BIRDS, AND THE OVEN-BIRD. 



(Icteria virens, Galeoscoptes carolinensis, and Siurus auricapillus.) 



N the pesent chapter it is my intention to notice one of 

 the most remarkable of all the passerine birds in the 

 avifauna of the United States. Its vernacular name 

 has, ever since the discovery of the species, been the 



Yellow-breasted chat, and so far as at present known to me, it 

 has, with but few exceptions, passed under no other. But in the 

 hands of the classifiers of birds, and those who christen them 

 with their technical or scientific names, the fate of this species 

 has been very different. 



Gmelin, Latham, and Pennant, with their followers, arrayed 

 it with the flycatchers; Desmarest had it among the tanagers; 

 Sparrman and others placed it with the cedar birds, while Lin- 

 naeus, Buffon, and Brisson believed it was a thrush. The 

 Prince of Musignano took Wilson to task for presuming to think 

 that it could be one of the manakins, and Vieillot adopted its 

 present genus, Icteria, for it. This generic appellation, together 

 with the specific one of virens, is recognized by the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, and in the Check List of North American 

 Birds, the Yellow-breasted chat, with its western subspecific rep- 

 resentative, the long-tailed chat, are made to stand between two 

 genera of warblers, but just why it would be difficult to say. 



The bird's exact position in the system will probably not be 

 known, however, until its anatomical structure has been care- 

 fully studied, and this compared with that of many other species 

 of suspected alliance. Even this side of the history of the Yellow- 

 breasted chat would incline us to believe we had under considera- 

 tion one of the ornithological puzzlers, apart from anything else; 

 but its affinities are no more problematical than are the habits 

 of this singular species unique. 



Probably few of those who read what I am writing here have 

 ever seen a Yellow-breasted chat, and it is said of Mr. Catesby, 

 who was the first to figure this species, that he was never able to 

 shoot one of them, and finally employed an Indian for the pur- 

 pose, and even the latter did not succeed until all his skill had 

 been put to the test. Doubtless this story is a little overdrawn. 



