. Birds & nature. Birds; Natural history. THE YELLOW-BREASTED COMMON name for this bird, the largest of the warb- lers, is the Yellow Mocking- bird. It is found in the eastern United States, north to the Connecticut Valley and Great Lakes ; west to the border of the Great Plains ; and in winter in eastern Mexico and Guatemala. It frequents the borders of thickets, briar patches, or wherever there is a low, dense growth of bushes—the thornier and more impenetrable the better. "After an acquaintance of many years," says Frank M. Chapman, "I frankly confess that the char
. Birds & nature. Birds; Natural history. THE YELLOW-BREASTED COMMON name for this bird, the largest of the warb- lers, is the Yellow Mocking- bird. It is found in the eastern United States, north to the Connecticut Valley and Great Lakes ; west to the border of the Great Plains ; and in winter in eastern Mexico and Guatemala. It frequents the borders of thickets, briar patches, or wherever there is a low, dense growth of bushes—the thornier and more impenetrable the better. "After an acquaintance of many years," says Frank M. Chapman, "I frankly confess that the character of the Yellow-Crested Chat is a mystery to me. While listening to his strange medley and watching his peculiar actions, we are certainly justified in calling him eccentric, but that there is a method in his madness no one wdio studies him can doubt.'" By many observers this bird is dubbed clown or harlequin, so peculiar are his antics or somersaults in the air; and by others " mischief maker," because of his ventriloquistic and imitating powers, and the variety of his notes. In the latter direction he is surpassed only by the Mockingbird. The mewing of a cat, the barking of a dog, and the whistling sound pro- duced by a Duck's wings when flying, though much louder, are common imitations with him. The last can be perfectly imitated by a good whistler, bringing the bird instantly to the spot, where he will dodge in and out among the bushes, uttering, if the whistling be repeated, a deep toned emphatic tac^ or hollow, resonant vicoiv. In the mating season he is the nois- iest bird in the woods. At this time he may be observed in his wonderful aerial evolutions, dangling his legs and flirting his tail, singing vocifer- ously the while—a sweet song differ- ent from all his jests and jeers—and descending by odd jerks to the thicket. After a few weeks he abandons these clown-like maneuvers and becomes a shy, suspicious haunter of the depths of the thicket, c
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1800, booksubjectbirds, booksubjectnaturalhistory
