WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



ported in the midst of a cluster of twigs, and con- 

 sist largely of pine-needles. I know a certain 

 group of pines upon a farm near Trenton, where a 

 sociable colony constructed and inhabited such un- 

 typical nests year after year for half a century. 



Again, in the northern part of New Jersey, less 

 than a hundred miles distant, the orchard orioles 

 never fix upon pine branches as a site, but inhabit 

 fruit-trees exclusively, making a nest of the usual 

 interwoven grasses, without any admixture of 

 pine-needles, but not pensile, it being upheld as 

 before in the midst of a clump of twigs, to which 

 it is securely fastened. Moreover, a competent ob- 

 server in this district tells me he has never known 

 the orioles there to use the same nest twice, whereas 

 at Trenton not only do they return to the ancestral 

 tree season after season, but always tear the old 

 nest to pieces with amusing vehemence to obtain 

 material for the construction of a new one, which 

 is occasionally erected upon the foundation of the 

 earlier structure. 



Such traits of individuality, here amounting to 

 an alteration in the very type of the nest structure, 

 are always extremely interesting in bird life; and 

 the variations of practice and product to which 

 they tend are highly suggestive when we lift our 



274 



