YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. 
397 
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, among the bushes, as if it pro- 
ceeded from a spirit. First are heard a repetition of short notes, 
resembling the whistling of the wings of a duck or teal, begin- 
ing 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 hol- 
low 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 mo- 
dulations of voice, as sometimes to seem at a considerable dis- 
tance 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 quar- 
ter 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 com- 
posed 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 
