A MIDSUMMER PRINCE. 225 



only the two middle feathers are black, and frequently the 

 black on the back is skirted with orange, and the tail tip- 

 ped with the same color." Much confusion arose among 

 the earlier naturalists from this circumstance, though not 

 quite so much as ensued upon the discovery of the cousin 

 of this species the orchard oriole which bears the spe- 

 cific name spurius to this day as a memory of the time 

 when ornithologists called it a " bastard." 



The singing of the males is at its height now that the 

 females have come, and they are to be heard, not only from 

 field and grove and country way-side, but in the streets of 

 villages, and even in the parks of cities, where they are rec- 

 ognized by every school-boy, w T ho calls them fire-birds, gold- 

 en-robins, hang-nests, and Baltimore birds. The lindened 

 avenues of Philadelphia, the elm- embowered precincts of 

 New Haven, the sacred trees of Boston Common, the clas- 

 sic shades of Harvard Square, and the malls of Central 

 Park all echo to their spring-time music. 



The song of the oriole is indescribable, as to me are the 

 tunes of most of the songsters. Nuttall's ingenious sylla- 

 bles are totally useless in expressing the pure and versatile 

 fluting which floats down from the elm top. Wilson catch- 

 es its spirit when he says that " there is in it a certain wild 

 plaintiveness and naivete extremely interesting," and that 



15 



