BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 



zoned orange and black, and the bird's colors are the 

 same. The head, neck, shoulders, and the upper part of 

 the back are jet black; breast, lower back, an^ *he under 

 parts brilliant cadmium orange ; wings black, lesser 

 coverts orange, margin of the greater coverts tipped with 

 white; end half of middle tail feathers black, the rest 

 orange with a middle black band. Female similarly 

 marked with burnt orange (very dull) and rusty black. 

 Nest, pendent from the Y of a small branch at the ex- 

 tremity of the limb twenty to nearly fifty feet above the 

 ground; woven of plant fibre, string, hair, grass, etc., 

 and a perfect pocket in shape. Egg, white, curiously 

 marked with scrawls of sepia brown, and with few spots. 

 The female does nearly all the nest-building; it is doubt- 

 ful if the male is very often allowed to assist.* Mrs. 

 Olive Thome Miller has named the young Oriole the 

 cry-baby of the bird world, and that it is entitled to the 

 appellation there is no shadow of doubt, if we except 

 the young Swift. Both birds at a certain age keep up 

 an incessant chippering clamor for food. 



The Oriole is a musician in the fullest sense of the 

 word. His ability to whistle a well-constructed song is 

 unquestionable. His only fault is his fragmentary treat- 

 ment of a good theme, and his chary way of singing it. 

 He is lavish with calls and chatterings, and devotes too 

 much time to preliminaries before he begins on the song 

 that he is well able to round out to a satisfactory finish. 

 In this regard he is not equal to the Song Sparrow, 

 whose exuberant good spirits are expressed by twenty 

 songs in the same period of time that the Oriole would 

 take for five. But the Song Sparrow's voice is thin and 

 weak beside that of the Oriole; the latter has a full, rich, 

 round, thougii somewhat metallic whistle, suggestive of 

 the mezzo-soprano, generally reliable in pitch and per- 

 cussive in effect. Oriole, too, is not without the harsh, 

 grating, unmusical note that belongs to his family (Jc- 

 teridce)', for sometimes you hear a scolding tone issue 

 from his bill that is reminiscent of the Grackle. A bird 



* Certain authorities to the contrary. But the male does assist; 

 iny own observations are sufficiently supplemented by those of W. 

 E. D. Scott, vide Bird Studies, p. 90. G. P. Putnam's Sons. . 



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