Length -- 7.5 inches. A trifle over an inch longer than the
English sparrow.
Male and Female -- Uniform olive-green above. Throat, breast, and
under side of wings bright, clear yellow. Underneath white.
Sides grayish. White line over the eye, reaching to base of
bill and forming partial eye-ring. Also white line on sides of
throat. Bill and feet black.
Range -- North America, from Ontario to Central America and
westward to the plains. Most common in Middle Atlantic States.
Migrations -- Early May. Late August or September. Summer
resident.
This largest of the warblers might be mistaken for a dozen birds collectively
in as many minutes; but when it is known that the jumble of whistles, parts of
songs, chuckles, clucks, barks, quacks, whines, and wails proceed from a
single throat, the yellow-breasted chat becomes a marked specimen forthwith --
a conspicuous individual never to be confused with any other member of the
feathered tribe. It is indeed absolutely unique. The catbird and the
mocking-bird are rare mimics; but while the chat is not their equal in this
respect, it has a large repertoire of weird, uncanny cries all its own -- a
power of throwing its voice, like a human ventriloquist, into unexpected
corners of the thicket or meadow. In addition to its extraordinary vocal
feats, it can turn somersaults and do other clown-like stunts as well as any
variety actor on the Bowery stage.
Only by creeping cautiously towards the roadside tangle, where this
"rollicking polyglot" is entertaining himself and his mate, brooding over her
speckled eggs in a bulky nest set in a most inaccessible briery part of the
thicket, can you hope to hear him rattle through his variety performance. Walk
boldly or noisily past his retreat, and there is "silence there and nothing
more." But two very bright eyes peer out at you through the undergrowth, where
the trim, elegant-looking bird watches you with quizzical suspicion until you
quietly seat yourself assume silent indifference. "Whew, whew!" he begins, and
then immediately, with evident intent to amuse, he rattles off an
indescribable, eccentric medley until your ears are tired listening. With bill
uplifted, tail drooping, wings fluttering at his side, he cuts an absurd
figure enough, but not so comical as when he rises into the air, trailing his
legs behind him stork-fashion. This surely is the clown among birds. But any
though he is, he is as capable of devotion to his Columbine as Punchinello,
and remains faithfully mated year after year. However much of a tease and a
deceiver he may be to the passer-by along the roadside, in the privacy of the
domestic circle he shows truly lovable traits.
He has the habit of singing in his unmusical way on moonlight nights. Probably
his ventriloquial powers are cultivated not for popular entertainment, but to
lure intruders away from his nest.