404 BISTORT OF THE 



Sp. Char. Head, neck, midrtle line of chest, back, scapulars, wings (except 

 lesser and middle coverts) and greater part of tail black; broad tips to greater 

 wing coverts, and narrow edgings to some of the quills and secondaries (these 

 sometimes worn away), white; rest of plumage, including lesser and middle 

 wing coverts, base and tip of tail (except middle feathers, but ou outer feathers 

 occupying nearly half their total length), rich cadmium orange, sometimes vary- 

 ing 10 intense orange red, very rarely to lemon yellow. Adult female: Very 

 variable in color, but usually (?) with ujiper parts olive, indistinctly streaked or 

 spotted with black, the wings dusky, with two white bands, and light grayish 

 edges to most of the feathers; rump dull ochraceous orange; tail duller, more 

 olivaceous, orange; lower parts dull orange, paler on flanks, the throat usually 

 with more or less admixture of black.* Toting of pear: Similar to adult female, 

 as described above, but colors softer and more blended, and upper parts suffused 

 with brownish. {Ridgway.) 



Iris dark brown; bill, ridge black, rest light blue; legs, feet 

 and claws dark blue. 



This familiar Oriole is very similar in habits to the Orchard, 

 but is less lively in actions, and ranges much farther north. 

 The males arrive in the spring at least a week ahead of tlie 

 females, and their brilliant plumage and varied mellow whist- 

 ling song insure them a welcome. The females also occasion- 

 ally warble a few low, pleasing notes. They are very beneficial 

 in their destruction of caterpillers and other injurious worms and 

 insects, upon which they almost wholly subsist, occasionally 

 plucking for a dessert a berry from a bush or a pea from the 

 pod; but never claim a hundredth part of the share to which 

 they are rightfully entitled. 



Their nests are suspended from the extremities of branches 

 (the elm appears to be the favorite tree), fifteen to forty feet 

 from the ground; a compact, strongly-woven, deep, purse-like 

 structure, composed of and attached to the twigs from which it 

 hangs, with flax-like strippings from plants and vines, and lined 

 with hair-like stems of grasses; when in the vicinity of dwell- 

 ings, twine and thread are used largely in its make-up. Eggs 



* The adult female often has the black pattern of head, neck and back as in male, but the 

 color much duller and less uniform. The young male also varies between the two extremes 

 (adult male and female) as described above, and cannot in any stage be with certainty distin- 

 guished from the adult female, except by dissection. 



