ORCHARD ORIOLE. 151 



erally speaking, the same, differing no more than those of any other in- 

 dividuals belonging to one common species. The female appears always 

 nearly the same. 



I have said that these birds construct their nests very differently from 

 the Baltimores. They are so particularly fond of frequenting orchards, 

 that scarcely one orchard in summer is -without them. They usually 

 suspend their nest from the twigs of the apple tree ; and often from the 

 extremities of the outward branches. It is formed exteriorly of a par- 

 ticular species of long, tough and flexible grass, knit or sewed through 

 and through in a thousand directions, as if actually done with a needle. 

 An old lady of my acquaintance, to whom I was one day showing this 

 curious fabrication, after admiring its texture for some time, asked me 

 in a tone between joke and earnest, whether I did not think it possible 

 to learn these birds to darn stockings. This nest is hemispherical, three 

 inches deep by four in breadth ; the concavity scarcely two inches deep 

 by two in diameter. I had the curiosity to detach one of the fibres, or 

 sfalks, of dried grass from the nest, and found it to measure thirteen 

 inches in length, and in that distance Avas thirty-four times hooked 

 through and returned, winding round and round the nest ! The inside 

 is usually composed of wool, or the light downy appendages attached to 

 the seeds of the Platanus occidentalism or button-wood, which form a 

 very soft and commodious bed. Here and there the outward work is 

 extended to an adjoining twig, round which it is strongly twisted, to 

 give more stability to the whole, and prevent it from being overset by 

 the wind. 



When they choose the long pendent branches of the weeping-willow 

 to build in, as they frequently do, the nest, though formed of the same 

 materials, is made much deeper, and of slighter texture. The circum- 

 ference is marked out by a number of these pensile twigs, that descend 

 on each side like ribs, supporting the whole ; their thick foliage, at the 

 same time, completely concealing the nest from view. The depth in 

 this case is increased to four or five inches, and the whole is made much 

 slighter. These long pendent brandies, being sometimes twelve and 

 even fifteen feet in length, have a large sweep in the wind, and render 

 the first of these precautions necessary, to prevent the eggs or young 

 from being thrown out ; and the close shelter afforded by the remarkable 

 thickness of the foliage, is, no doubt, the cause of the latter. Two of 

 these nests, such as I have here described, are now lying before me, and 

 exhibit not only art in the construction, but judgment in adapting their 

 fabrication so judiciously to their particular situations. If the actions 

 of birds proceeded, as some would have us believe, from the mere im- 

 pulses of that thing called instinct^ individuals of the same species would 

 uniformly build their nest in the same manner, wherever they might 

 happen to fix it ; but it is evident from these just mentioned, and a 



