ICTERID^ 



261 



sent back to the old country skins of a very 

 beautiful bird which they called an Oriole. As 

 is usual with names invented under such con- 

 ditions, this one was a inisnonier. because the 

 European Oriole is a totally dilTerent bird from 

 the one which the colonists so named. It hap- 

 pened, however, that the plumage of this Ameri- 

 can bird showed the orantje and black, which 

 were the family colors of Lord Baltimore, and 

 therefore when T.innreus, the great Swedish 

 naturalist, prepared in 1766 a scientific descrip- 

 tion of the .Xmerican bird, he named it in honor 

 of Lord Baltimore. 



The Oriole's singularl}- cheerful call is an even 

 surer sign of the final retreat of winter, than is 

 that of the Robin or the Bluebird. In fact, the 

 bird arrives in New England usually not until 

 early in May. when spring generally is an accom- 

 plished fact. Throughout the next two months 

 the males are almost continuously in song, to 

 which the females add a more modest and less 

 sjirightly little warble of their own. The " song " 

 usually amounts to little more than two or three 

 call-notes, which can hardly be considered even 

 a musical phrase. An amusing exception to this 

 general rule was furnished by an Oriole who had 

 his home in one of a group of shade trees in 

 East Liberty, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pa. It 

 was the year when Lottie Collins was astonish- 

 ing the natives with her famous Boom, ta ra-ra, 

 boom, de-ayc song, and it hap])ened that the 

 Pittsburgh Oriole repeated exactly, omitting 

 only the first note, the opening phrase of that 

 extraordinary effort, whistling it incessantly as 

 he scouted through the tree-tops. 



Thoreau, who had a keen ear for hird-nuT^ic, 

 and something like a distinct gift for reducing 

 the phrases to words — as nearly as that can be 

 done — thought that an Oriole of his acquaint- 

 ance said something like, " Eat it. Potter, eat it !" 

 which is ingenious as well as amusing, and about 

 as accurate as such transliterations can be. The 

 scientist, to whom the slightest deviation from 

 literal and firmly established facts is a hideous 

 crime, might be unable to overlook the misre])re- 

 sentation in Lowell's pretty picture of the 

 Oriole's struggle with the pack-thread, since the 

 male liird is referred to : but. as a matter of fad, 

 his lordship has been known to bring material 

 to his spouse, though, in truth, she does most, if 

 not all. of the actual weaving. However, the 

 person who sees in birds more than a mere o])- 

 {)ortunity for classification and " orderly " ar- 

 rangement does not fail to find essential truth 



and beauty in these lines of a poet who knew 

 birds and loved them well : 



Hush! 'tis he! 



My Oriole, my K'a"ce 01 summer fire 

 Is come at last, and, ever on the watch 

 Twitches the pack-thread I had hghtly wound 

 Around the hougli to help his house-keeping, — 

 Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck. 

 Yet fearing me, who laid it in his way. 

 Heave ho! Heave ho! he whistles as the twine 

 Slackens its hold. Once more now ! and a flash 

 Lightens across the sunlight to the elm 

 Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt. 



ICven liner, perhaj^s, are Edgar Eawcett's lines: 



How falls it. Oriole, thou hast come to fly 

 In tropic splendor through our northern sky? 



At some glad moment was it Nature's choice 

 To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice? 



Or did an orange tulip, flaked with black. 

 In some forgotten garden, ages back, — 



Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard. 

 Desire unspeakably to be a bird ? 



Georgk (Jladden. 



One of the cotton-growers' bird friends is the 

 Baltimore Oriole. It generally reaches their 

 district at about the time the boll-weevils are 

 making their annual flight and immediately 

 starts feeding uiion them. Specimens which 

 have been examined have contained on the av- 

 erage two weevils each, and one Oriole had 

 eaten nine. Caterpillars form the largest item 



— 34 per cent. — in the Oriole's bill of fare. 

 Plant and bark lice are so small that they are 

 generally overlooked by most birds. But it is 

 not so with the Baltimore Oriole ; he searches 

 for these damaging little pests. The larvae of 

 the click beetle, which are among the most de- 

 structive insects known, form part of the food of 

 this bird, while ants are eaten in the spring, 

 grasshoppers in July and August, and wasps and 

 spiders throughout the season. 



During the stay of the Baltimore Oriole in the 

 United States he eats very little vegetable matter 



— only 16 per cent, of his total food being pos- 

 sible of that classification. He often gives cause 

 for complaint by his bad habit of eating green 

 peas ; he sometimes strips the pods to such an 

 extent that crops are severely damaged. Another 

 accusatioti which he has to answer is that of 

 j)uncturing ripening grapes: but investigation of 

 this charge seems to prove that the only culti- 

 vated grapes he troubles are on vines that run 

 up into trees where he can work unseen. The 



