90 



YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 

 PIPSA POLYGLOTTA. 

 [Plate VI.— Fig. 2.] 



Muscicapa xnridis, Gmel. Si/st. I, 936. — Le Merle vert de la Caroline, Buff on III, 396.—- 

 Chattering Flycatcher, Arct. Zool. II, No. 266. — Lath. Syn, III, 350, 48. — Garrulus 

 Australis, Bar tram, 290. — Pe ale's Museum, No. 6661. 



THIS is a very singular bird. In its voice and manners, and 

 the habit it has of keeping concealed, while shifting and vociferat- 

 ing around you, it differs from most other birds with which I am 

 acquainted; and has considerable claims to originality of charac* 

 ter. It arrives in Pennsylvania 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 favorite situa- 

 tion, which is almost always in close thickets of hazel, brambles, 

 vines, and thick underwood, he becomes very jealous of his pos- 

 sessions, 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 difficult to describe, 

 but which may be readily imitated so as to deceive the bird him- 

 self, 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 with- 

 out 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. 



