Baltimore Oriole. 187 



door, frequently within easy reach of the vigilant house 

 cat. 



The architectural skill of the Baltimore oriole has done 

 much to bring the species into prominence. After it has 

 acquired an experience of several seasons, its deft work- 

 manship is the wonder and admiration of every student 

 of bird-ways who has examined the strong and handsome 

 pouch it constructs, largely from vegetable materials. No 

 North American bird surpasses it in the quality of its 

 work, or in the tact and ingenuity it displays in suspend- 

 ing its home and in preserving it from impending ruin on 

 certain occasions. The fragile, cup-shaped structures of 

 many of the smaller species may be handsomer and more 

 elaborate, but are not more indicative of skill and genius. 

 The nest is generally suspended from the smaller twigs at 

 the extremity of a long, drooping branch, often so near 

 the tip of the branch that the weight of the materials is 

 too great for the yielding twigs. A site frequently chosen 

 is the forking twigs of the topmost bough of a maple, 

 directly above the main axis of the tree. 



There is a great variety in the materials selected and 

 also in. the size of the structure, as a series of nests of the 

 same pair of birds will show. The first nest may be no 

 more than four inches deep, while older birds frequently 

 weave pouches more than a foot in length. Vegetable 

 fibers, strings, rags, hair, wool, and feathers are often 

 wrought into the same nest, and constitute the ordinary 

 materials. Kests of experienced builders are often con- 

 structed throughout of soft, well-chosen weed fibers, fre- 

 quently of milkweed and hemp, deftly and artistically 

 woven into a symmetrical pouch of uniform color. Low- 

 ell's verse is perfect in its details: 



" Then from the honeysuckle gray 

 The oriole with experienced quest, 

 Twitches the fibrous bark away, 

 The cordage of his hammock nest, 

 Cheerins; his labor with a note 

 Eich as the orange of his throat." 



The real nest is a lining of soft material in the bottom 

 of the hanging tenement. The eggs are pale grayish 

 blue, irregularly marked, scratched, and fiorured with 



