92 YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 



these are uttered with great vehemence, in such different 

 keys, and with such peculiar modulations of voice, as some- 

 times to seem at a considerable distance, and instantly as if 

 just beside you, now on this hand, now on that; so that, from 

 these manoeuvres of ventriloquism, you are utterly at a loss to 

 ascertain from what particular spot or quarter they proceed. 

 If the weather be mild and serene, with clear moonlight, he 

 continues gabbling in the same strange dialect, with very little 

 intermission, during the whole night, as if disputing with his 

 own echoes ; but probably with a design of inviting the pass- 

 ing females to his retreat; for, when the season is farther 

 advanced, they are seldom heard during the night. 



About the middle of May they begin to build. Their nest 

 is usually fixed in the upper part of a bramble bush, in an 

 almost impenetrable thicket ; sometimes in a thick vine or 

 small cedar; seldom more than four or five feet from the 

 ground. It is composed outwardly of dry leaves; within these 

 are laid thin strips of the bark of grape-vines, and the inside 

 is lined with fibrous roots of plants, and fine dry grass. The 

 female lays four eggs, slightly flesh-coloured, and speckled all 

 over with spots of brown or dull red. The young are hatched 

 in twelve days ; and make their first excursion from the nest 

 about the second week in June. A friend of mine, an amateur 

 in canary birds, placed one of the chat's eggs under a hen 

 canary, who brought it out ; but it died on the second day ; 

 though she was so solicitous to feed and preserve it, that her 

 own eggs, which required two days more sitting, were lost 

 through her attention to this. 



While the female of the chat 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, 

 to the height of thirty or forty feet, with his legs hanging ; 

 descending as he rose, by repeated jerks, as if highly irritated, 

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

 gesticulation we must attribute to his extreme affection for 



