BIRDS OP MINNESOTA. 281 



I have never known them to bring out more than one brood in 

 the season. After the young are sufficiently grown to fly they 

 disappear from their ordinary localities and are afterwards 

 less frequently seen, except by those familiar with their post 

 nidifying habits. Their distribution throughout the State is 

 universal. Mr. Washburn and many others report it common 

 in districts explored by them. 



Note. — Authors differ as to the pensile character of the 

 Orchard Oriole's nest. In his Birds of New England, Samuels 

 on page 347 says: "It is not pensile, but is built on the 

 branch." Langille says an page 245 of his "Our Birds in 

 their Haunts:" — The nest is hung by the upper edge to a limb." 



I have never seen a nest o?i a limb, as the former states, and 

 from the entire mechanism of it I can not see how it could be 

 thus placed, but while always hung by the upper edge, I have 

 met instances when it received substantial support from a 

 fortuitous limb under it which was firmly secured to it. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Bill slender, attenuated, considerably decurved; tail moder- 

 ately graduated; head and neck all around, wings, interscap- 

 ular region of the back and tail feathers, black; rest of under 

 parts, lower part of back to tail, lesser upper wing coverts 

 and the lower one, brownish-chestnut; a narrow line across 

 the wing and the extreme outer edges of quills, white. 



Length, 7.75; wing, 3.25; tail, 2.60. 



Habitat, United States west to the Plains. 



ICTERUS GJALBULA (L.). (507). 

 BALTIMORE ORIOLE, 

 Pew of the birds spending their summers in Minnesota 

 arrive with more pronounced regularity than the Baltimore 

 Oriole. Years in succession he had not varied three days 

 from the tenth of May. The very characteristic note of the 

 male upon his first appearance will arrest the attention of 

 anyone enough to secure a careful search for him, when his 

 unmistakable plumage settles his identity for everyone. The 

 females usually arrive about three days later, rarely more, but 

 not infrequently have they come within twenty-four hours. In 

 the interval between the arrival of the sexes, the males have 

 a very peculiar, clear, strong, whistling association of about 

 three or four notes, which are at once exchanged for a beauti- 

 ful, pathetic variety, when she has come. They sing quite 

 volubly, and voluptuously while pairing, and only less so dur- 

 ing incubation, but become comparatively silent afterwards, 

 until they retire southward not far from the 30th day of August. 



