ORCHARD ORIOLE. 285 



GENUS ICTERUS BRISSON. 

 ICTERUS SPURIUS (Lixx.). 



206. Orchard Oriole. (506) 



Male : Black ; lower back, rump, lesser wing coverts, and all under parts 

 from the throat, deep chestnut ; a whitish bar across the tips of greater wing 

 coverts ; bill and feet, blue-black ; tail, graduated. Length, about 7 ; wing, 3 ; 

 tail, 3. Female : Smaller, plain yellowish-olive above, yellowish below ; 

 wings, dusky ; tips of the coverts and edges of the inner quills, whitish ; known 

 from the female of the other species by its smaller size and very slender bill. 

 Young male: At first like the female, afterwards showing confused characters 

 of both sexes ; in a particular stage it has a black mask and throat. 



HAB. United States, west to the Plains, south, in winter, to Panama. 



Nest, pensile, composed of grass and other stringy materials ingeniously 

 woven together and lined with wool or plant down, rather less in size and not 

 quite so deep in proportion to its width as that of the Baltimore. 



Eggs, four to six, bluish -white, spotted and veined with brown. 



On the 15th of May, 1865, I shot an immature male of this species 

 in an orchard at Hamilton Beach, which was the first record for 

 Ontario. I did not see or hear of it again till the summer of 1883, 

 when they were observed breeding at different points around the 

 city of Hamilton, but since that year they have not appeared near 

 this place. 



Mr. Saunders informs me that they breed regularly and in consid- 

 erable numbers near London and west of that city, from which we 

 infer that the species enters Ontario around the west end of Lake 

 Erie, and does not come as far east as Hamilton. Most likely it 

 does not at present extend its migrations in Ontario very far from 

 the Lake Erie shore. The notes of the male are loud, clear and 

 delivered with great energy, as he sits perched on the bough of an 

 apple tree, or sails from one tree in the orchard to another. This 

 species would be a desirable acquisition to our garden birds, both on 

 account of his pleasing plumage of black and brown, and because of 

 the havoc he makes among the insect pests which frequent our 

 fruit trees. 



I learn from Dr. Macallum that the Orchard Oriole breeds regu- 

 larly in small numbers along the north shore of Lake Erie, near 

 Dunnville, but it evidently does not proceed far north of our southern 

 boundary. One wanderer, but only one, is reported by Dr. Coues as 

 having appeared at Pembina. 



