SPURIOUS OR ORCHARD ORIOLE. 165 



SPURIOUS OR ORCHARD ORIOLE. 



{Icterus spurius, Bonap. Oriolusspurius, Lin. Wilson, i. p. 64. pi. 

 4. fig. 1. [female.] fig. 2. [a male of 2 years.] fig. 3. [a male of 3 

 years.] fig. 4. [the adult male.] Audubon, pi. 42. Philad. Muse- 

 um, No. 1508.) 



Sp. Charact. — Tail wedge-formed. — JWaZe bright chesnut ; the 

 head and neck, back, wings, and tail, black. — Female and young 

 of one year, yellow olive, inclining to brown, beneath yellow; 

 wings and tail dusky brown. — The young male of more than one 

 year, the same, but with the throat black. 



This smaller and plainer species has many of the hab- 

 its of the preceding, and arrives in Pennsylvania about 

 a week later. They enter the southern boundary of the 

 United States early in March, and remain there until Oc- 

 tober.* They do not however, I believe, often migrate 

 farther north and east, than the state of Connecticut. 

 I have never seen or heard of them in Massachusetts, 

 any more than my scientific friend, and a close observer, 

 Mr. C. Pickering. Their stay in the United States, it 

 appears from Wilson, is little more than 4 months ; as 

 they retire to South America early in September, or, at 

 least, do not winter in the Southern States. According 

 to my friend Mr. Ware, they breed at Augusta, in Georgia; 

 and Mr. Say observed the Orchard Oriole at Major 

 Long's winter quarters on the banks of the Missouri. Au- 

 dubon has also observed the species towards the sources 

 of the Mississippi, as well as in the state of Maine. The 

 same author likewise remarks, that their northern mio-ra- 

 tions, like those of the Baltimore Bird, are performed by 

 day, and that the males arrive a week or ten days sooner 



* Andubon's Ornithological Biography, vol. i. p. 224. 



