ORCHARD ORIOLE 203 



with great abandon from a perch and especially on the wing. I have 

 heard one sing six times in a minute and have tried to express his 

 song by the words Look here, what cheer, what cheer, whip yo, what 

 cheer, wee yo." Witmer Stone (1937) represents it with the syllables 

 "teetle-to — wheeter-tit-tillo-wheetee, chip, chip, cheer." Another bird 

 called: "Choop, choop, choolik as if trying to start a song and failing 

 in the effort." Francis H. Allen tells me that the food calls of the 

 young resemble those of the Baltimore oriole, but are higher pitched 

 and more rapid. Young males in first year plumage sing enthusias- 

 tically; and sometimes females sing a little. 



Field marks. — The adult male orchard oriole is unmistakable in 

 his black and chestnut plumage. The young male is like the female, 

 but has a black, or partially black, throat and usually more or less 

 chestnut scattered through his plumage. The female might easily be 

 mistaken for the female of some other orioles, but she differs from the 

 Baltimore oriole by being olive-green above, instead of brownish olive, 

 and having less of an orange tinge on the under parts, which are dull 

 yellow. 



Enemies. — The orchard oriole is a not uncommon host of both the 

 eastern and the dwarf cowbirds. There is a set in my collection con- 

 taining a cowbird's egg. Dr. J. C. Merrill (1877) mentions a nest 

 that contained three eggs of the red-eyed cowbird, "while just be- 

 neath it was a whole egg of this parasite, also a broken one of this 

 and of the Dwarf Cowbird." The nest was, of course, deserted. 



Harold S. Peters (1936) mentions only one external parasite as 

 found on this oriole, a louse, Myrsidea incerta (Kell.). 



Grackles, which sometimes nest in the same trees with the orioles, 

 probably rob some of the nests of eggs or small young. And young 

 birds that leave the nests prematurely fall easy prey to various 

 predators. 



Fall. — The orchard oriole spends only about 10 weeks in the north- 

 ern part of its breeding range, arriving early in May and leaving soon 

 after the middle of July. It lingers through August and occasionally 

 into September in some of the Southern States; Howell (1932) gives 

 one very late date, October 13, 1917, for Royal Palm Hammock in 

 southern Florida. The fall migration is started and, apparently, 

 often finished before the annual molt is accomplished; some young 

 birds arrive in Central America while still in juvenal plumage, and 

 many adults are still molting when they arrive. 



As soon as the young are able to fly, old birds disappear with their 

 families, forming into flocks, and are seen no more in their breeding 

 haunts. In Missouri, according to Widmann (1907), "after the young 

 are grown the species roams in July and August in troops through the 

 country living mostly on wild cherries, wild grapes and other wild fruit, 



