190 
ORDERS OF BIRDS— PERCHERS AND SINOERS 
times builds a floor over the unwelcome egg.” 
(Birder aft, p. 95.) 
The Yellow-Breasted Chat 1 is much larger 
than the typical wood warblers, being 7\ inches 
long to their 5 or 5£ inches. It has an olive-green 
back and a sulphur-yellow breast and throat, 
with a white line extending from its beak above 
and around its eye. By these colors, and its 
RED-EYED VIREO. 
erect tail, it may easily be recognized. It is a 
very pert and saucy bird, and much given to 
frequenting the haunts of country dwellers. 
The Chat is not a great singer. He has no 
regular song, and the notes he utters are jerky, 
erratic and elusive. Its voice has some peculiar 
quality which renders this bird very difficult to 
locate by sound alone. Many times I have been 
completely misled by its call notes coming from 
a thicket, and finally found the bird yards away 
from the spot whence its go-as-you-please voice 
seemed to come. 
“A Chat courtship,” says Mr. A. C. Webb, in 
“Some Birds, and their Ways,” “ is a sight never 
to be forgotten. In the spring, when birds begin 
housekeeping, the male Chat charms himself 
and his mate by some remarkable performances 
in the air. Launching himself from the top of 
some tall tree, he flutters from side to side, flirts 
his tail, stops, stands on his head, dangles his 
1 Ic-te'ria vi'rens. Length, 7.25 inches. 
legs as if they were broken, turns somersaults, 
and makes a monkey of himself generally, as he 
descends to the thicket below, where his mate 
is perched among the briers. Sometimes he 
starts from the low bushes and rises almost 
straight up into the air until he is above the tree- 
tops. He chatters and screams as he goes, telling 
her to watch him now as he comes down, and see 
if in all her life she ever saw a bird that could 
do such wonderful feats. No doubt to her 
eyes he is the picture of grace and elegance as he 
performs on his flying trapeze, but to us his clown- 
like antics seem ridiculous.” 
The Chat of the East is represented in the far 
West by a long-tailed variety, and between the 
two their range covers nearly the whole of the 
United States, British Columbia and Mexico. 
The American Redstart 2 looks like a small, 
pinkish-yellow understudy of .the Baltimore 
oriole, 5% inches long. Its colqrs and color- 
pattern are very similar to those of our old friend 
of the elm-trees, velvety black on the back and 
head, reddish-orange on the sides and breast, 
and white on the belly. The tail is orange and 
black, and the colors are very prettily disposed. 
On the whole, this bird has (in my estimation) 
the most beautiful color-pattern to be found in 
all our long procession of warblers and ground- 
thrushes. The female is so different in color it 
is at first difficult to believe her of the same spe- 
cies. Her body-colors are brownish-olive above 
with sides of pale yellow, and the head is gray 
instead of black. 
This beautiful bird is to be looked for all over 
North America from Labrador and Fort Simp- 
son to northern South America. In the North 
it arrives in May, and abides until September. 
The Water-Thrushes. — Beginners in bird- 
study are warned to note the fact that in the 
Warbler Family are several birds called “Water- 
Thrushes,” which do not belong to the Thrush 
Family. It is a pity that they have not been 
distinguished by some other name. There are 
two species, the Common Water-Thrush , 3 
and the Louisiana Water-Thrush , 4 the first a 
northern, the latter a southern bird. Both live 
in the dark recesses of virgin forests, where clear 
brooks gurgle over mossy stones, between fern- 
2 Se-toph'a-ga ru-ti-cil'la. Length, 5.50 inches. 
3 Se-i-u'rus no-ve-bo-ra-cen'sis. Length, 6 inches. 
1 S. mot-a-cil'la. 
