^°'i^lV"] Bailey, The Palm-leaf Oriole. 33 



THE PALM-LEAF ORIOLE. 



BY FLORENCE IIERRIAM BAILEY. 



Plates IV and V. 



Major Bendire, in his biography of Icterus nelsoni designates 

 it as "the Arizona Hooded Oriole, also known in southern Cali- 

 fornia as the 'Palm-leaf Oriole,'" and Cones in his fifth edition 

 gives both names without comment. JNIajor Bendire states that 

 ]\Ir. Walter E. Bryant when at Comondu, Lower California, 

 found this oriole "nesting in the palm trees," and Mr. Brewster 

 says that one of Mr. ISI. Abbott Frazar's Lower California nests 

 was "attached to the underside of a palm leaf." ^ 



In southern California the growth of the birds' habit of nesting 

 in fan palms seems to have paralleled the peoples' habit of planting 

 fan palms in rows bordering their city streets, a habit frowned on 

 by part of the population though persisted in, as a rebellious citizen 

 complained, "to show the easterners that we can grow them here!" 

 The palms are also used conspicuously as decorations for railroad 

 station grounds — perhaps to preclude the possibility of escape 

 from tropical impression — and noisy and unsuitable as the loca- 

 tions seem, oriole nests are sometimes found only a few yards from 

 the tracks. 



In eight towns and three country places in the general region 

 between Redlands and San Diego in the summer of 1907 I counted 

 forty nests made of palm fiber and hung in fan palms, and twelve 

 others made of palm fiber and hung in other trees. This number 

 doubtless represented but a small fraction of the actual nests in the 

 places listed as they were noted largely in passing, sometimes while 

 waiting for trains. 



The great variety of })alms used for decorative purposes in 

 southern California gives the oriole a wide range of choice in nesting 

 sites, but with one exception, that of a yucca-like palm in Santa 

 Ana, the nests found were in the common native Washington fan 



1 Birds of the Cape Region of Lower California. By William Brewster. Bull. 

 Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard University, Vol. XLI, No. 1. 



