THE YELLOW-THEOATED CHAT. 557 



ing from the throat of a quadruped than that of a bird, which 

 are succeeded by others not unlike the mewing of a cat, but con- 

 siderably hoarser. 



" All these are uttered with great vehemence, in such different 

 keys and with such peculiar modulation of voice as sometimes 

 to seem at a considerable distance, and instantly as if just beside 

 you ; now on this side and now on that ; so that, from these ma- 

 noeuvres of ventriloquism, you are utterly at a loss to ascertain 

 from what particular spot or quarter they proceed. If the weath- 

 er be niild and serene, with clear moonlight, he continues gab- 

 bling in the same strange dialect, with very little intermission, 

 during the whole night, as if disputing with his own echoes. 



" While the female is sitting, the cries of the male are still 

 more loud and incessant. When once aware that you have seen 

 him, he is less solicitous to conceal himself, and will sometimes 

 mount up into the air, almost perpendicularly, with his legs hang- 

 ing, descending, as he rose, by repeated jerks, as if highly irri- 

 tated, or, as is vulgarly said, ' dancing mad.' All this noise and 

 gesticulation we must attribute to his extreme affection for ,his 

 mate and young ; and when we consider the great distance from 

 which in all pi^obability he comes, the few young produced at a 

 time, and that seldom more than once in the season, we can see 

 the wisdom of Providence very manifestly in the ardency of his 

 passions." 



The nest which the bird defends with such skill and courage 

 is very well concealed in a dense thicket, and the bird is always 

 best pleased if it can find a bramble-bush thick in foliage and 

 well beset with thorns. Sometimes it is forced to content itself 

 with a vine or a cedar, and in any case it is seldom more than 

 four or five feet from the ground. The outer wall is made of 

 leaves, within which is a layer formed of the thin bark of the 

 grape-vine, and the lining is formed of dried grasses and fibrous 

 roots of plants. 



An allied bird, the Yellow-theoated Chat {Vireo flavifrons), 

 makes a nest somewhat similar in materials, though not in locali- 

 ty, to that of the preceding bird. It is usually fixed in the hori- 

 zontal branch of a tree or bush, and is made from the bark of 

 the grape-vine, moss, and lichens, and is lined with fine vegetable 

 fibres. 



Of our four British pigeons, two are branch -builders. The 



