THE 



WILSON BULLETIN 



No. 43 \ 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 

 ORNITHOLOGY 



Vol. X. JUNE, 1903. No. 3. 



THE NEST OF THE ORCHARD ORIOLE. 



(Icterus spurtJis) 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT. 



During the past thirty years, at different times I have 

 examined a number of nests of the Orchard Oriole [Icterus 

 spJiriiis), and these have been collected from the latitude 

 of Washington, D. C, to that of southern New England. It 

 is truly remarkable how much they vary, not only in the 

 matter of form, but in the materials selected by the birds 

 for their construction, and in the places chosen by them for 

 their building. These variations and circumstances are 

 doubtless responsible for the great differences we meet with 

 in the descriptions and figures published by ornithological 

 writers, no two of which ever seem to agree in their essen- 

 tial particulars. Among the descriptions left us by the 

 earlier authors, we meet that of Audubon, and were we to 

 judge from it alone, we would be fully justified in believing 

 that the building of the nest of this species, the materials 

 employed, and its location and form, were more or less uni- 

 form. Certainly he could have examined but very i&w of 

 them, and these from a very restricted locality, or else the 

 bird has very materially changed its habits since. In sub- 



