NORTHERN YELLOW-THROAT 103 



Nesi, rather bulky, of coarse grasses, leaves, and strips of bark, 

 low in a thicket. Eggs, white, speckled and spotted with reddish- 

 brown. 



The Yellow-breasted Chat is a common summer resident 

 of southern Connecticut and the lower Hudson Valley ; in 

 southern Ehode Island it is locally common ; northward 

 it becomes rare, and though found sparingly in the 

 valleys of Berkshire County, Mass., and rather commonly 

 at Swampscott, Mass., it does not seem to breed north 

 of the latter State. The Chat arrives in May and leaves 

 in August. Its favorite haunts are tangled briery thick- 

 ets, or thick bushes in clearings. Here it soon makes 

 its presence known by its loud calls. These are of aston- 

 ishing variety, and sometimes absurdly grotesque. When 

 uttering them the bird is often concealed in the thicket ; 

 at such a time he frequently utters his notes with such 

 modulations and in such different keys that he seems now 

 close at hand, and now far away. When singing on a 

 limb, he turns with an air of ludicrous gravity from side to 

 side, and in the height of the breeding season dances jerkily 

 in the air with outstretched legs. The commoner calls are 

 a loud too too too, resembling somewhat the song of the 

 White-bellied Nuthatch, a whistled whit, and various 

 clucking and mewing sounds. 



NoRTHEEN Yellow-thkoat ; Maryland Yellow- 

 throat. Geothlypis trichas hraehidactyla 

 5.33 



Ad. $ . — Upper parts deep olive-green in strong light ; fore- 

 head and broad line through eye black, bordered above by ashy 

 gray; throat and breast bright yellow; belly yellowish. Ad. 9. 

 — Without the black or ashy lines ; throat and breast yellowish ; 

 belly whitish. 



Nest, on the ground or in a tussock, a deep structure of 

 leaves and grasses. Eggs, speckled with brown at the larger 

 end. 



