248 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



our windows, we can recognize him, provisionally at least, as the 

 same bird year after year until, after a time, he is replaced by another 

 bugle, playing a different tune. 



There is a banding record, however, which proves absolutely that 

 an oriole returned three times to its breeding ground. A. Milliken 

 (1932) banded in 1929 a female Baltimore oriole captured in an open- 

 top Chardonneret trap baited with string and yarn. She returned in 

 1930 and 1931. "The bird nested very near the same place for three 

 successive years, though the exact spot is not known." 



There is a businesslike air in the returning orioles. The males 

 go directly to our orchards, visiting the open apple and cherry blos- 

 soms, where they find food, and to the elm trees, where their nests 

 will soon hang. The females, too, when they arrive a few days after 

 their mates, seem eager to undertake at once the duties of the new 

 season and begin to build so promptly that the breeding cycle is well 

 underway, here in New England, by the end of May. 



Very seldom, in a long series of years, have the orioles arrived 

 before the Massachusetts apple trees blossom. The birds then seek 

 their food nearer the ground, among sweet fern or other small plants. 



Courtship. — We note the courtship of the Baltimore oriole chiefly 

 in the brief period between its arrival and the laying of the eggs 

 in early June. Forbush (1927) speaks of its behavior thus: "When 

 their modest consorts arrive, the ardent birds soon begin their wooing. 

 In displaying his charms before the object of his affections the male 

 sits upon a limb near her, and raising to full height bows low with 

 spread tail and partly-raised wings, thus displaying to her admiring 

 eyes first his orange breast, then his black front and finally in bright 

 sunlight the full glory of his black, white and orange upper plumage, 

 uttering, the while, his most supplicating and seductive notes." 



Francis H. Allen (MS.) says: "A male courting a female uttered a 

 succession of low sweet whistling notes, rather monotonous and in 

 anything but the typical oriole tone," and of another bird he says: 

 "A male courting a female flitted about in an affected manner and 

 sang on the wing in a longer flight." 



Some years ago, after watching the courting action of a male 

 oriole, I (Tyler, 1923) made an attempt to construct in my mind's 

 eye how his display would appear to the eye of the female from her 

 vantage-ground on the perch in front of him: 



A male Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula) of strikingly brilliant plumage was 

 singing loudly in a maple tree when a female Oriole took a long flight and alighted 

 in the same tree. The male flew to her, placed himself directly before her, facing 

 her at a distance of a few inches and here struck successively two attitudes; in 

 one his body was nearly upright, straight and tall, in the other it was bowed down- 

 ward and forward with the head at the level of the feet. The wings were held 

 closely at the sides. In passing quickly from one attitude to the other, over and 



