CHAT

any of several songbirds (suborder Passeres, order Passeriformes) named for their harsh, chattering notes. True chats make up a major division of the thrush family Turdidae (or subfamily Turdinae of the Muscicapidae); they are collectively grouped under chat-thrushes (q.v.). Australian chats are chiefly Epthianura species, usually placed in the family Maluridae but sometimes separated as the subfamily Epthianurinae (both groups are sometimes considered families). Nomadic inhabitants of scrubby open lands of the south, they feed on terrestrial insects. All are about 13 centimetres (5 inches) long. The white-faced chat (E. albifrons) is white and gray, with a black band from nape to breast (male); it is also called tang, from its metallic note. The yellow-breasted chat (Icteria virens) of North America is, at 19 cm (7 1/2 in.), the largest member of the wood-warbler family Parulidaeif in fact it belongs there. Greenish-gray above and bright yellow below, with white spectacles (sexes alike), it skulks in thickets but may perch in the open to utter its mewing, churring, and whistling sounds.