248 THE FEATHEKED TRIBES. 



THE ORCHARD ORIOLE. 



The Orchard Oriole is another of this genus, which visits the United States in spring, 

 and fixes his pendent nest to the extremity of the twigs of spreading trees. Wilson says, 

 '•■ They are so particularly fond of frequenting orchards, that scarcely one orchard in 

 summer is without them. Thej^ usually suspend their nest from the twigs of the apple- 

 tree, and often from the extremities of the outward branches. It is formed exteriorly of 

 a particular species of long, tough, and flexible grass, knit or sewed through and through 

 in a thousand directions, as if actually done with a needle. An old lady of my acquaint- 

 ance, to whom I was one day showing this curious fabrication, asked me, in a tone 

 between joke and earnest, whether I did not think it possible to teach these birds to darn 

 stockings ? The nest is hemispherical, three inches deep by four in breadth ; the 

 concavity scarcely two inches deep by two in diameter. I had the curiosity to detach 

 one of the fibres or stalks of dried grass from the nest, and found it to measure thirteen 

 inches in length, and in that distance it was thirty-four times hooked through and 

 and returned, winding round and round the nest ! The inside is usually composed 

 of the light downy appendages attached to the seeds of the plufanus accidentcdis, 

 or button wood, which form a very soft and commodious bed. Here and there the 

 outward work is extended to an adjoining twig, round which it is strongly twisted, to 

 give more stability to the whole and prevent it from being overset by the wind. When 

 they choose the long pendent branches of the weeping-willow to build in, as they 

 frequently do, the nest, though formed of the same materials, is made much deeper, and 

 of lighter texture. The circumference is marked out by a number of these pensile twigs 

 that descend on each other, like ribs, supporting the whole ; their thick foliage, at the 

 same time, completely concealing the nest from view. These long pendent branches, 

 being sometimes twelve and even fifteen feet in length, have a large sweep in the wind, 

 and render the first of these precautions necessary to prevent the eggs or young from 

 being thrown out ; and the close shelter aftbrded by the remarkable thickness of the 

 foliage is, no doubt, the cause of the latter." The orchard oriole is a lively, active, 

 restless bird, never idle, never inanimate, but perpetually on the alert, his shrill and 

 rapid carol being maintained with little intermission. He keeps iqj a system of 

 destruction among the insect tribes and caterpillars which infest the loa\es and buds of 

 fruit trees, thereby rendering man no little service, for hundreds of these pests to the 

 farmer are not sufficient for the daily consumption of himself, his mate, and their young ; 

 the multitudes thus destroyed by a single pair of birds nnist be prodigious. 



* Icterus Mutatus. — Wilson. 



