The oriole is as useful as it is tuneful and ornamental. Caterpillars consti- 

 tute the largest item of its fare, including many not touched by other birds. It 

 eats also beetles, bugs, ants, grasshoppers and spiders. Particular mention must 

 be made of the boll weevil, of which the oriole is a determined foe. The small 

 amount of fruit taken by the oriole, including cherries, is insignificant when 

 compared with the long list of harmful insects it destroys. 



Aside from its showy plumage, its sprightly and pleasing ways, its familiar- 

 ity with man, and the immense amomit of good it does by the destruction of many 

 noxious insects and their larvcC. including hairless caterpillars, spiders' cocoons, 

 etc., it naturally and deservedly endears itself to every true lover of the beautiful 

 in nature. Only a short-sighted churl or an ignorant fool would begrudge one of 

 these birds the few green ])eas and berries it may help itself to while in season. 

 Jt fully earns all it takes, and more, too. 



The r)altimore oriole usually arrives with a most invaria1)le regularity about 

 May 10th, rarely varying a week from this date. y\bout this time the trees have 

 commenced to leaf, and many of the orchards are in bloom, so that their arri\al 

 coincides with the loveliest time of the year. The males usually i)recede the 

 females by two or three days to their breeding grounds, and the same site is fre- 

 quently occupied for several seasons. It is very much attached to a locality when 

 once chosen for a home and is loath to leave it. 



Few birds are more devoted to each other than these orioles, and 1 am of the 

 opinion that tliey remain mated through life. Their favorite haunts in our eastern 

 states are found in rather open country, along the roads bordered with shade 

 trees, creek bottoms, orchards and the borders of small timbered tracts. It is 

 equally at home in villages or cities of considerable size as long as they furnish 

 suitable trees for nesting sites. It shuns swam]\v and marshy tracts and extensixe 

 forests. 



.\ very pecular note, a long-drawn-out chattering, chae. chae, chae. is a])t 

 to draw one's attention to it on its ti-rst arrival, and this i^ more or less frequentl\- 

 uttered throughout the season. 



This note is difficult to reproduce exactly, and 1 hnd its songs still more so. 

 One sounds somewhat like hioh, hioh, tweet, tweet; another, something like whec- 

 he-he, whee-he-he, oh whee-he-he-woy-woy This last is much more softly ut- 

 tered than*the first. .Mr. T. Xuttall describes one of their songs as tshippe- 

 tshayia-too-too-tshippe-tshippa-too-too. and there are others imjjossible to render. 

 The young after leavi,ng the nest lUler a note like he-he-hae, and another like heek- 

 heek-he, varied occasionally by a low twittering. Shortly after their arrival they 

 sing almost incessantly when not eating, but later in the season when thev h.ive 

 their always hungry family to provide ffir they are more sileiU. Their flight is 

 stnjiig. swift and graceful and they ;ire far more at home on the wing than on 

 the ground, wbere they are ^tldoni -^een except when picking vq> some insect or in 

 search of nesting material. 



In the vicinity of Washington. Histrict of (."olunibii. nidification commences 



181 



