Widmann — A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. 161 



summer residents, originally inhabiting the timber along water 

 courses, but now taking to orchards, gardens and even the shade 

 trees around houses and the streets of towns and cities. It is one 

 of the commonest species in the Ozarks, wherever there is a 

 settlement, on the ridges as well as in the valleys. The first 

 come to southern Missouri soon after the middle of April, to 

 central Missouri in the fourth week, and to the more northern 

 part of the state the last days of the month or the first few 

 days of May, when the bulk of the species has generally spread 

 all over the rest of the state. The first to arrive are the old 

 males followed after a few days by the first females and the first 

 males of the second year. It is from one to two weeks after 

 the first males have come before their full strength is reached 

 and their song heard everywhere. After the young are grown 

 the species roams in July and August in troops through the 

 country living mostly on wild cherries, wild grapes and other 

 wild fruit, sometimes visiting orchards. After August 20 the 

 species is seen only occasionally, though we may come upon a 

 few later in the month or in early September, exceptionally later 

 (September 17, 1903, New Haven; September 21, 1903, Kansas 

 City). 



*507. Icterus galbula CLinn.) Baltimore Oriole. 



Oriolus baltimore. Icterus haltimore. Yphantes baltimore. Hangnest. 



Geog. Dist. — Eastern North America, breeding from southern 

 United States, except along Gulf coast, north to Maritime 

 Provinces, Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba; west to eastern 

 Assiniboia, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. Winters through eastern Mexico and Central 

 America to Colombia and Venezuela. 



In Missouri a common summer resident except in the Ozarks 

 where it is found in the larger valleys only. Originally the 

 Baltimore inhabited the trees overhanging streams and it still 

 follows this fashion in the southeast, where its loud wild notes 

 fit well to the weird scenery of those desolate waters. With 

 the settlement of the prairie region it was not slow to see the 

 advantages of a closer contact with modern conditions and now 

 hangs its nest in the shade trees next to human habitation, but 

 fortunately so far out of reach of enemies that the species can 

 not only hold its own, but is enabled to spread to sections not 

 inhabited before. The first male Baltimore arrives in southeast 

 Missouri at the end of the first or beginning of the second week 



