712 



CASSICUS. 



not more interesting. We shall give short notices of 

 one or two of the best known species, some of which 

 are migrants and great depredators. 



X. Baltimore (Baltimore Oriole). Upper part 

 blackish, with a tawny band across the wings ; under 

 part tawny ; greater coverts black, with white tips ; 

 first quills dull white, edged with brighter ; tail feathers 

 orange above and white on the under side, the two 

 middle ones black, and the bill lead-coloured. The 

 female is different : the head, neck, and back varie- 

 gated with olive green and brown ; coverts and quills 

 margined with white, the tail greenish grey. The 

 young resemble the female, but are paler in the 

 colours. 



These birds are migrant within North America, 

 ranging as far northward as Canada in the summer, 

 but moving to the south in the winter, but not so far 

 as the shores of the Mexican Gulf. They are very 

 elaborate nest-builders. The nest is finely interwoven 

 of vegetable fibres, and perhaps closer than that of the 

 first sub-genus ; but it is not nearly so long, nor hung 

 in quite so pendulous a manner. It is in the shape 

 of a pear, not completely roofed at the top, and with 

 a hole in the side. Vegetable fibres form the prin- 

 cipal part of the structure, but hair and wool are also 

 made use of. The eggs are mottled with reddish 

 spots. The birds have a very peculiar way of jerk- 

 ing their wings and tails, and showing their different 

 colours as they flit from branch to branch of the trees. 



X. icterus (large Banana bird). General colour 

 deep tawny yellow, with the head, throat, wings, and 

 tail black, and two white lines across the wings. 

 Length between nine and ten inches. This is a very 

 handsomely formed bird ; and though the colours are 

 not gaudy they are rich and beautiful. It is a very 

 active bird and destroys a great number of insects. It 

 is also said to kill and eat smaller birds, but this part 

 of its history is not very well established, and it is 

 contrary to the general habits of the family. 



This" species is found both in North and South 

 America, and it is abundant in many of the West 

 India islands, especially in Jamaica but in North 

 America it keeps to the warm grounds, and also to 

 the more southerly parts of the country. It is a 

 gregarious bird, and exceedingly active ; but during 

 certain seasons it is very apt to commit depredations 

 in the fields of bananas, on which account it is called 

 the banana bird. The nest is constructed at the end 

 of a branch, and is of a cylindrical form. The bird is 

 very easily tamed, much attached, fond of being 

 caressed, and not without its domestic use in those 

 low and humid parts of the country where the houses 

 are much infested with insects, as it captures these 

 very expertly, and in great nnmbers. 



X. phaeniceus (the scarlet-feathered Indian bird). 

 This species, which is equally conspicuous on ac- 

 count of its numbers and the colours of its plumage, 

 is found in the whole range of North America, from 

 Mexico to Canada, and probably, at certain seasons, 

 to the shores of Hudson's Bay, where insects are 

 exceedingly abundant during the summer months. 

 The vast production of insect life in those northern 

 parts of America, which renders the swamps and 

 uncleared parts of the forest so very annoying to 

 Europeans, is a very important part in the natural 

 history of the insectivorous and omnivorous birds of 

 that part of the world. The great difference in 

 temperature, and consequently of productiveness, 

 between the summer and the winter in Canada, and 



the regions to the north and west, between the sterile 

 rocks of Labrador and the Stony Mountains, renders 

 the summer season one of great activity for every 

 species of life, both animal and vegetable. The 

 summer temperature is as high as that of the West 

 Indies, and as the day is longer in proportion to the 

 night than in these islands, the growth is correspond- 

 ingly vigorous. The winter, too, does not nip and 

 wither the vegetation, as in many other cold countries, 

 as the snow falls early, and forms a complete mantle 

 to the ground, which remains till the warm weather 

 again sets in ; and as much of the ground is flat, and 

 tangled with bushes, the water produced by the 

 melting snow soaks into the soil, and affords nourish- 

 ment to the plants during the whole summer. 



The same circumstances are peculiarly favourable 

 to the breeding of all those insects which deposit 

 their eggs in the water gnats, musquitoes, and all 

 the other pests which are equally annoying in the 

 damp forests of polar and of tropical countries, with 

 only this difference, that they are perpetual pests in 

 the latter, and summer ones only in the former. The 

 width of the uninhabited parts of these countries, and 

 their remarkable productiveness, occasion a migration 

 of birds quite unknown in any other part of the world ; 

 and many of them, and the species now under consi- 

 deration, migrate in such numbers, especially on their 

 return southward, that, if the facts were not well 

 ascertained, they would not be credited. 



This bird is about the size of a common starling, 

 of a black colour, but with a patch of bright crimson 

 margined with yellow on each shoulder. The female 

 is brownish, with pale margins to the feathers, and 

 the red is not nearly so distinct. The male is subject 

 to considerable changes of colour, being sometimes 

 black and white, so that they have sometimes been 

 multiplied into two or three species. In winter they 

 resort in vast numbers to the plains in the lower valley 

 of the Mississippi, where sometimes as many as three 

 hundred of them are captured at one haul of the net ; 

 and formerly when the red patches of feathers were 

 used as ornaments to female attire, there were instances 

 in which one person caught at least 20,000 birds in 

 the course of one winter. These birds breed in the 

 marshes, and suspend their nests between reeds in 

 the most accessible parts of them. The nest is, like 

 that of all the family, curiously constructed, but the 

 materials are, of course, those which the marsh affords, 

 the leaves of reeds and of coarse grasses. They 

 sometimes use mud in the structure, and always line 

 the nest carefully with the most delicate vegetable 

 fibres- that they can procure. They prefer reeds as a 

 means of suspension, but in the absence of these they 

 will suspend it to a bush, though always in marshy 

 places. They are very prolific birds, having usually 

 two broods in the season, and four or five in each 

 brood. The eggs are greyish white with black spots. 

 In the marshes of the middle latitudes of their range, 

 they feed much upon the seeds of the Canadian rice 

 (Zizania aqiuttica) ; but in the cultivated parts of 

 the country they are great plunderers, especially of 

 the fields of maize or Indian corn ; and from the 

 depredations which they commit upon that grain, 

 they are popularly called " maize thieves." 



They attack the fields at two seasons of the year, 

 that is, when the seeds begin to germinate, at 

 which time they have a sweetish taste, and again 

 when the crop is nearly ripe, in which state it is 

 also soft and sweetish. They are exceedingly bold 



