YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 
211 
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, something 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 these are uttered with great vehemence, 
in such different keys, and with such peculiar modulations of voice, as 
sometimes 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 passing 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 colored, 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 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, we can see the wisdom of Providence very manifestly 
in the ardency of his passions. 
Catesby seems to have first figured the Yellow-breasted Chat ; and 
the singularity of its manners has not escaped him. After repeated 
