(_Icteria virens_) Wood Warbler family
_Called also_: POLYGLOT CHAT; YELLOW MOCKING BIRD
_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 and 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.