264 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



did not follow one another about and they acted as if perfectly inde- 

 pendent of each other. Yesterday I saw an adult male in another 

 part of the town, feeding alone. This appears to be a habit of the 

 male at this season, to separate himself from his family and remain 

 alone." 



Winter. — There are several references in the literature to orioles 

 found in winter, stranded far to the north of their normal winter 

 range. Two of these birds, one in Virginia, the other in Ohio, were 

 feeding on apples. Doubtless most of these lost birds perish, but 

 Robie W. Tufts (MS.) reports on an immature female bud found in 

 Nova Scotia in such a weakened condition that he captured her on 

 December 13, and kept her indoors over the winter, "during which 

 time she ate chiefly grapes"; he liberated her on the following May. 



Alexander F. Skutch (MS.) supplies this comprehensive report of 

 the bird on its winter quarters: "The Baltimore oriole arrives in 

 Central America during the second week of September, but does not 

 become abundant before the end of the month. During the north- 

 ern winter, it resides throughout the region from Guatemala to the 

 Isthmus of Panama^ on both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts and 

 high up into the mountains. Scarcely any other winter visitant is 

 so widely and uniformly distributed throughout the area. 



"To appreciate the wide tolerance of environmental conditions 

 implied in the winter distribution of the Baltimore oriole, one must 

 be familiar with the local variations in climate and the corresponding 

 differences in the nonmigratory section of the avifauna. Thus the 

 arid coast of El Salvador, where I found these orioles abundant 

 among cacti and low thorny trees early in the parched month of Feb- 

 ruary, has exceedingly few resident birds in common with the humid 

 coastal districts on the opposite side of the continent, in Honduras 

 and Guatemala, where also the Baltimore orioles pass the winter in 

 large numbers, amid lofty rain-forests, lush thickets, and extensive 

 banana plantations. And very few of the birds which breed in the 

 lowlands on either coast are found in the highlands above 5,000 or 

 6,000 feet. Yet in December 1933 I found a few Baltimore orioles 

 which had apparently settled down for the winter among the oaks, 

 pines, and alders on the Sierra de Tecpan in Guatemala, at an alti- 

 tude of 8,500 feet above sea level, where at this season nights were 

 penetratingly cold, and every clear dawn revealed all the open spaces 

 white with frost. Thus, in Central America, this adaptable bird 

 makes itself at home, for a period covering half the year, almost 

 everywhere that trees supply fruits, and insects lurk amid the foliage. 

 It is especially fond of plantations, orchards, and pastures with 

 abundant shade trees; but it also hunts through the treetops of the 

 tall rain-forests, although it never, in my experience, descends into 



