X. 



A MIDSUMMER PRINCE. 



CECILIUS CALVERT, second Baron of Baltimore, has a hold 

 upon the recollections of mankind far surpassing that se- 

 cured by any monument in the noble city which he found- 

 ed, in the fact that the most charming bird that makes its 

 summer home in the parks of that city bears his name. 

 That bird is the Baltimore oriole Icterus Baltimore of Lin- 

 iiseus. Its plumage is patterned in orange and black, the 

 baronial colors of the noble lord's livery; and Linnaeus only 

 paid an appropriate compliment to the source to which he 

 owed his specimen of the new species, when, in 1766, he 

 recognized the coincidence in the name. 



Then as now the orioles were among the most beautiful 

 and conspicuous of woodland birds. From their winter re- 

 treat under the tropics they return northward as the warm 

 weather advances, arriving in Maryland during the latter 

 part of April, and reaching central New England by the 

 middle of May. In these migrations, performed mostly by 



