BIKDS OF INDIANA. 



901 



Nest, pensile, purse-shaped, suspended from slender branch of tree; 

 of vegetable fibres, hair, string and shreds of bark. Eggs, 4-6; pale 

 grayish-white, blotched, spotted and irregularly lined with black, 

 brown and lavender; .91 by .61. 



Summer resident. Frequents the vicinity of water. The trees 

 along water courses and about ponds and lakes are favorite places both 

 for feeding and nesting. In many localities away from streams, this 



Baltimore Oriole. 

 (Beal Year Book, United States Department of Agriculture, 1895, p. 427.) 



Oriole is rare. Sometimes during the spring migrations they are gen- 

 erally distributed over the country. They apparently have been much 

 less common the past few years. Their winter home is eastern Mex- 

 ico, Centra] America, into the United States of Colombia. Cuba is 

 the only one of the West Indies visited. One noting their restricted 

 winter home, and seeing the large proportion of the skins of these 

 birds shipped from there for purposes of decoration and adornment, 

 need have no difficulty in understanding how that may have a con- 

 siderable effect upon the number that returns to us in the spring. 



But the spring of 1897 they were more numerous during the mi- 

 grations for a few days than I ever saw them. They were found wher- 

 ever trees grew. In the deepest woods and orchards; on hilltop and 

 valley; in country and town. In one small apple tree, May 6, 1 found 



