IOO Scott on the Nesting Habits of the Hooded Oriole. [April 



October. Such, at least, was my experience during the season of 

 1SS4. They are not great songsters, but are very conspicuous, 

 both by their plumage and by their peculiar call or rattle, which 

 is very similar to that of the Baltimore Oriole, only it is more 

 prolonged. Two broods are raised, and not infrequently three, 

 during their stay here, and a new home is built for each brood. 

 The old birds are great workers when building their nests, and 

 the rapidity with which so elaborate a structure is completed is 

 astonishing. Three or four days at most generally suffice to 

 complete the structure. No detailed description of the eggs will 

 be essential in this connection, they have been so often care- 

 fully described, ami only when unusual shall I dwell upon them. 

 Three or four is the usual number laid, though after the first 

 set four is unusual. 



The ten nests to be presently described were all taken from 

 three kinds of trees, cottonwood, sycamore, and a kind of ash ; 

 and, considering that the location of all were not a mile apart, 

 it would seem that taste or fancy had much to do with producing 

 in the same locality, where the materials used by all of the 

 builders are abundant and easily obtained, structures varying so 

 widely in general appearance, in the materials of which they are 

 built, and in their method of building, as well as in mode of 

 attachment to the tree. 



Some of the nests, it will be seen, are as truly pensile as those 

 of Icterus galbiila ; others are more like those of Icterus 

 spur/us; while one at least rests on a stout twig and is hardly 

 to be regarded as a hanging nest at all. 



The following data are taken from the nests before me and 

 from notes made when the nests were collected. 



Xo. 1. Nest of May 2S. In a cottonwood, forty-five feetfrom 

 the ground. Contained a full set of three eggs, which were fresh 

 and of the usual coloration. They measure .92 X -6o, .92 X 

 .63, and .8^ X .62. respectively. The nest is a rather bulky- 

 structure, and is built externally of coarse green grasses, rather 

 loosely woven, but so knitted and tied together as to form a very 

 strong wall. The general appearance of the surface is smooth, 

 though the contour of the whole is unsymmetrical. There is 

 a distinct lining, which is of fine dried grasses very compactly 

 laid together, but not woven, in parallel circles, one above the 

 other, reaching to the rim of the nest. Just in the bottom there 

 is one large feather of a Hawk and a little down. 



