204 BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 



inches diameter, and seven inches in depth, rounded at bot- 

 tom. The opening at top is narrowed, by a horizontal cover- 

 ing, to two inches and a half in diameter. The materials are 

 flax, hemp, tow, hair, and wool, woven into a complete cloth; 

 the whole tightly sewed through and through with long horse 

 hairs, several of which measure two feet in length. The bot- 

 tom is composed of thick tufts of cow hair, sewed also with 

 strong horse hair. This nest was hung on the extemity of the 

 horizontal branch of an apple-tree, fronting the south-east; was 

 visible one hundred yards off, 'though shaded by the sun; and 

 was the work of a very beautiful and perfect bird. The eggs 

 are five, white, slightly tinged with flesh colour, marked on 

 the greater end with purple dots, and on the other parts with 

 long hair-like lines, intersecting each other in a variety of di- 

 rections. I am thus minute in these particulars, from a wish to 

 point out the specific difference between the true and bastard 

 Baltimore, which Dr. Latham and some others suspect to be 

 only the same bird in different stages of colour. 



So solicitous is the Baltimore to procure proper materials for 

 his nest, that, in the season of building, the women in the coun- 

 try are under the necessity of narrowly watching their thread 

 that may chance to be out bleaching, and the farmer to secure 

 his young grafts; as the Baltimore finding the former, and the 

 strings which tie the latter, so well adapted for his purpose, fre- 

 quently carries off both ; or should the one be too heavy, and 

 the other too firmly tied, he will tug at them a considerable 

 time before he gives up the attempt. Skeins of silk, and hanks 

 of thread, have been often found, after the leaves were fallen, 

 hanging round the Baltimore's nest; but so woven up, and en- 

 tangled, as to be entirely irreclaimable. Before the introduc- 

 tion of Europeans, no such material could have been obtained 

 here; but with the sagacity of a good architect, he has improved 

 this circumstance to his advantage; and the strongest and best 

 materials are uniformly found in those parts by which the 

 whole is supported. 



Their principal food consists of caterpillars, beetles and bugs, 



