92 



YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT 



which required two days more sitting, were lost thro her attention 

 to this. 



While the female of the Chat is sitting, the cries of the mal^ 

 are still more loud and incessant. When once aware that you have 

 seen him he is less solicitous to conceal himself; and will some- 

 times mount up into the air, almost perpendicularly, to the height 

 of tliirty 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 attri- 

 bvite to his extreme affection for his mate and young; and when 

 we consider the great distance which in all probability he comes, 

 the few young produced at a time, and that seldom more than once 

 in the season, w e can see the wisdom of providence very manifestly 

 in the ardency of his passions. 



Mr. Catesby seems to have first figured the Yellow-breasted 

 Chat; and the singularity of its manners has not escaped him. 

 After repeated attempts to shoot one of them, he found himself 

 completely baffled; and was obliged, as he himself informs us, to 

 employ an Indian for that purpose, who did not succeed without 

 exercising all his ingenuity. Catesby also observed its dancing 

 manoeuvres, and supposed that it always flew with its legs extend- 

 ed ; but it is only in these paroxysms of rage and anxiety that this 

 is done, as I have particularly observed. 



The food of these birds consists chiefly of large black beetles, 

 and other coleopterous insects ; I have also found whortle-berries 

 frequently in their stomach, in great quantities; as well as several 

 other sorts of beiTies. They are very numerous in the neighbour- 

 hood of Philadelphia, particularly on the borders of rivulets, and 

 other watery situations, in hedges, thickets, &c. but are seldom seen 

 in the forest, even where there is underwood. Catesby indeed as- 

 serts, that they are only found on the banks of large rivers, two or 

 three hundred miles from the sea ; but tho this may be the case, 

 in South Carolina, yet in Maryland and New Jersey, and also in 



