254 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



notes, falling in pitch a little, with a ringing or resonant quality. It 

 is a pathetic little childish cry or complaint, beseeching, yet insistent, 

 half way between entreaty and demand, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee. The 

 pitch is about F sharp, on the top line of the musical staff. This note 

 has given the fledgling oriole the epithet "cry baby." 



William Brewster (1937) gives his impression of the young oriole's 

 note. He says: "As she [the female parent] came flying back, I was 

 struck by the tone of mingled anxiety and interrogation of her low call. 

 1 Where? Where? 1 she seemed to say. ( Here-we-are, here we are' (falling 

 inflection), both young would promptly drawl in answer and then, as 

 she alighted near them, would repeat and extend this to: 'Here-we-are, 

 mam-ma, here we are, mam-ma' . It really required almost no imagi- 

 nation to fit these words to the calls in question and now that they 

 have occurred to me the calling of young Orioles will no longer be to 

 my ears, as it always has been, a disagreeable sound." 



He adds in a footnote: "A week later when this call had become 

 louder and mellower, it often bore a strong resemblance to the whistle 

 of the Greater Yellow-leg, the form being almost exactly the same." 



Audubon (1842) remarks: "A day or two before the young are quite 

 able to leave the nest, they often cling to the outside, and creep in and 

 out of it like young Woodpeckers. After leaving the nest, they follow 

 the parents for nearly a fortnight, and are fed by them." William 

 Brewster (1906) says: "After the breeding season is over both old and 

 young resort more or less freely to bush-grown pastures and the edges 

 of woods. On July 19, 1889, I saw upwards of forty collected within 

 the space of half an acre in Norton's Woods, and I have met with 

 smaller flocks at Rock Meadow and in the Maple Swamp." 



Small companies of orioles in immature or female plumage are fre- 

 quent here in New England up to the time when the species departs 

 in late August. As a rule, however, there are no adult male birds in 

 these gatherings. 



Forbush (1927) and Bendire (1895) give the incubation period as 

 14 days; Eaton (1914) gives it as about 12 days, and DuBois (MS.) 

 as 12 days. Bendire (1895) says that the young birds remain in the 

 nest about 2 weeks; DuBois (MS.) reports a case in which they left 

 in 11 or 12 days. 



Plumages. — [Author's note: Jonathan Dwight, Jr. (1900), de- 

 scribes the juvenal plumage of the Baltimore oriole, in which the 

 sexes are alike, as follows: 



["Above, olive-brown, slightly orange tinged, brightest on head 

 and upper tail coverts. Wings clove-brown, the primaries narrowly, 

 the tertials broadly edged with dull white, two wing bands at the 

 tips of greater and median coverts pale buff. * * * Tail chiefly gall- 

 stone-yellow, centrally much darker and brownish. Below, including 



