134 THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



will not put them on the outside of the nest ; but the 

 whole structure is less elaborate now than formerly. 

 They are more like cups suspended by the rims than 

 cylinders. This, it has been suggested, has come 

 about from the fact that long, slender nests conceal- 

 ing the sitting bird and inaccessibly placed are now 

 not needed for safety, the birds so generally nesting 

 near our houses, where their natural enemies are not 

 found. I have seen one nest in an elm-tree but 

 twelve feet from the ground and overhanging a part 

 of a farm-yard where there was constant passing and 

 repassing. When, on the other hand, you occasion- 

 ally find a nest in a lonely spot away from any human 

 habitation, there you will find the more elaborate 

 structure, and placed where it cannot be reached ex- 

 cept by the birds themselves. 



A few days after the first appearance of the Balti- 

 more orioles there comes to the same places, and 

 prances about in the same lively manner, a dull- 

 colored black and red-brown bird that we know at 

 once is an oriole, but not the Baltimore. To my mind 

 he is a great improvement over his gaudy and noisy 

 cousin. Fine feathers do not always make a fine bird. 



Its song has as many notes as the Baltimore, and 

 none of them on the factory-whistle order. There 

 is just the difference between the song of the Orchard 

 Oriole and that of the Baltimore as between smooth- 

 ness and roughness, as between the rattle of stones 

 and the gliding of water over them. We would miss 

 the Baltimore in summer, but it would be something 

 like missing the bore we expected ; not to have the 

 orchard oriole would be a deprivation. 



