46 Bird- Lore 



the bird passes from nestling to adult, and these proved very puzzling to the 

 early ornithologists. In fact, it was left for that painstaking bird student, Alex- 

 ander Wilson, properly to explain the several plumages of this bird. The old male 

 is shown at the top of the accompanying plate in his chestnut and black dress, 

 while the female at all times is in the olive-and-yellow plumage shown in the 

 lowest figure. The male in its nestling plumage, and during the first autumn, 



is similar to the adult female; but by the next spring we find that 

 Plumage he has acquired a black throat, such as we see in the middle 



figure; so that we often find one nest attended by a black -throated, 

 olive-green male, while the proprietor of the next is clad in chestnut and black. 

 To add to the complication, some of the olive-green males have a part of the tail 

 feathers black, and have black and chestnut spots on other parts of the body. 

 Some ornithologists are of the opinion that these birds are in their second year 

 breeding plumage, while the black and chestnut birds are in the third; but it 

 seems probable that they represent merely individual variations, and that all 

 the males are in the black and chestnut dress by their second nesting-season. 



At any rate, the male Orchard Oriole is a good example of the interesting 

 problems that are encountered in the study of sequence of plumages and molting. 

 In this connection, it may be stated that similar differences between breeding 

 males of the first and second year may be detected in other species, though they 



are not usually so pronounced. The Baltimore Oriole is much 

 Molt duller the first year, and the Scarlet Tanager and Rose-breasted 



Grosbeak have olive or brown wing- and tail-feathers, instead 

 of black ones. All these changes, too, are brought about by a molt or renewal of 

 the feathers, either in the late summer after the breeding-season (postnuptial 

 molt) or in the early spring (prenuptial molt). The feathers themselves do not 

 change color, and wherever changes of plumage such as these take place they are 

 produced by the replacement of feathers of one color by those of another. 



The Orchard Oriole does not range so far north as does the Baltimore Oriole. 

 It breeds from North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, central New 

 York and Massachusetts, to northern Florida, the Gulf coast and northern 



Mexico, but does not range normally west of Kansas. Nebraska 

 Range and Texas. In the northern part of its range, too, it is often rare 



and local, and is greatly outnumbered by the Baltimore. In the 

 southern and lower Middle states, however, it is abundant and outnumbers the 

 Baltimore. In winter it retires to Central America, occurring all the way from 

 southern Mexico to Colombia. It reaches the southern border of the United 

 States about April i, and the latitude of Washington and St. Louis about April 

 28. In the autumn we see only a few after September i ; indeed, it would seem that 

 they started south before the postnuptial molt began, as I have never seen an 

 autumnal molting bird from the United States. 



Duller in color and in many other respects less striking than his relative, the 

 Baltimore, the modest Orchard Oriole has always had to take second place 



