NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 277 



503. Icterus auduboni GIRAUD [266.] 



Audubon's Oriole. 



Hab. Central and Northern Mexico, north to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas. 



This large and beautiful Oriole is found in the United States in 

 the L,ower Rio Grande Valley, from thence southward. Dr. Merrill 

 found it in moderate abundance about Fort Brown, where it is the 

 only resident species. Its usual song is a prolonged and repeated 

 whistle of extraordinary mellowness and sweetness, each note varying 

 in pitch from the preceding. It is shy, and remains in the deep woods 

 during the breeding season. 



At Ivomita, on the Rio Grande, Mr. George B. Sennett found two 

 nests with incomplete sets of eggs early in May. At Hidalgo a set of 

 four was taken. The three nests were found in heavy timber, some 

 ten or twelve feet from the ground, are half-pensile, something like 

 those of the Orchard and Bullock's Orioles, and attached to upright 

 terminal branches. They are composed of dried grasses woven among 

 the growing twigs and leaves so as to form a matting light and firm. 

 They measure on the inside some three inches in depth and rather 

 more in width. The eggs Mr. Sennett describes as being peculiar, re- 

 sembling those of no other found in that region. The ground- 

 color is white, covered with fine flecks of brown, giving the egg the 

 appearance of being covered with dust. Over these flecks, and prin- 

 cipally at the larger end, are irregular stains and splashes of deeper 

 brown, sometimes mixed with lilac, on which are coarse dark brown 

 or black hieroglyphics. Some have more and larger splashes than 

 others, but none are free from the dark, grotesque lines peculiar to the 

 eggs of this family. In shape they are less pointed, and in size smaller 

 to size of bird, than those of other Orioles. The shells are very ten- 

 der. Nine specimens average in size .gyx^i, the largest being i.oox 

 .72, and the smallest .96x.67.* 



504. Icterus parisormn BONAP. [268.] 



Scott's Oriole. 



Hab. Central Mexico, north to southern border of the United States Texas to Arizona. Lower 

 California. 



Scott's, Paris or Black-and-yellow Oriole, as it is variously called, 

 is found more or less abundantly in all suitable localities of Southern 

 Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. On May 4, 1885, Mr. W. B. D. Scott 

 found a nest of this species containing two fresh eggs, in Final county, 

 Arizona. During the summer of 1884 he found five nests in the same 

 region, between May 24 and July i. All except one were placed in 

 yucca plants, about four feet from the ground, and situated not far 



* Further Notes on the Ornithology of the Lower Rio Grande of Texas. 



