YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. gi 



vociferating around you, it differs from most other birds with 

 which I am acquainted, and has considerable claims to origi- 

 nality of character. It arrives in Pennslyvania about the 

 first week in May, and returns to the south again as soon as 

 its young are able for the journey, which is usually about the 

 middle of August ; its term of residence here being scarcely 

 four months. The males generally arrive several days before 

 the females, a circumstance common with many other of our 

 birds of passage. 



When he has once taken up his residence in a favourite 

 situation, which is almost always in close thickets of hazel, 

 brambles, vines, and thick underwood, he becomes very jealous 

 of his possessions, and seems offended at the least intrusion ; 

 scolding every passenger as soon as they come within view, in a 

 great variety of odd and uncouth monosyllables, which it is diffi- 

 cult to describe, but which may be readily imitated, so as to de- 

 ceive the bird himself, and draw him after you for half a quarter 

 of a mile at a time, as I have sometimes amused myself in doing, 

 and frequently without once seeing him. On these occasions, 

 his responses are constant and rapid, strongly expressive of 

 anger and anxiety ; and while the bird itself remains unseen, 

 the *voice shifts from place to place, among the bushes, as if it 

 proceeded from a spirit. First is heard a repetition of short 

 notes, resembling the whistling of the wings of a duck or teal, 

 beginning loud and rapid, and falling lower and slower, till 

 they end in detached notes ; then a succession of others, some- 

 thing like the barking of young puppies, is followed by a 

 variety of hollow, guttural sounds, each eight or ten times 

 repeated, more like those proceeding from the throat of a 

 quadruped than that of a bird ; which are succeeded by others 

 not unlike the mewing of a cat, but considerably hoarser. All 



a dozen different genera. It was arranged in Muscicapa by Gmelin, 

 Latham, and Pennant ; in Turd.us, by Brisson and Buffon ; in Ampelis, 

 by Sparrman ; and in Tanagra, by Desmarest. I was at first inclined 

 to consider it as a Vireo; but, after having dwelt more upon the charac- 

 ters and habits of this remarkable species, I have concluded to adopt 

 Icteria as an independent genus, agreeably to Vieillot." — Ed. 



