YELLOW-BREASTED ICTERIA. 
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modulations, as to appear near or distant, like the manoeu- 
vres of ventriloquism. In mild weather, also, when the 
moon shines, this gabbling, with exuberance of life and 
emotion, is heard nearly throughout the night, as if the 
performer were disputing with the echoes of his own voice. 
Soon after their arrival, or about the middle of May, 
the Icterias begin to build, fixing the nest commonly in 
a bramble-bush, in an interlaced thicket, a vine, or small 
cedar, 4 or 5 feet from the ground. The outside is 
usually composed of dry leaves, or thin strips of grape- 
vine bark, and lined with root-fibres and dry, slender 
blades of grass. The eggs are about 4, pale flesh-color- 
ed, spotted all over with brown or dull red. The young 
are hatched in the short period of 12 days ; and leave 
the nest about the second week in June. While the 
female is sitting, the cries of the male are still more loud 
and incessant. He now braves concealment, and, at 
times, mounts into the air almost perpendicularly 30 or 
40 feet, with his legs hanging down, and, descending as he 
rose, by repeated jerks, he seems to be in a paroxysm of 
fear and anger. Its usual mode of flying is not, howev- 
er, different from that of other birds. 
The food of the Icteria consists of beetles and other 
shelly insects ; and, as the summer advances, they feed on 
various kinds of berries, like the Flycatchers, and seem 
particularly fond of whortleberries. They are frequent 
through the Middle States, in hedges, thickets, and 
near rivulets and watery situations, 
The Icteria is 7 inches long, and 9 in alar extent. Above, it is of a 
rich deep olive-green, with the exception of the tips of the wings, and 
the inner vanes of the wing and tail-feathers, which are dusky 
brown; throat and breast of a bright yellow ; the abdomen and vent 
white ; the front dull cinereous ; lores black ; a line of white extends 
from the nostril to the upper part of the eye, which it nearly encir- 
cles ; a spot of white also at the base of the lower mandible. Bill 
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