WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



increase, they lay aside even this, and, except at 

 dawn, are rarely heard at all. 



But, after all, the chief interest about our oriole 

 is its wonderful home, which hangs upon the out- 

 most branches of the elms along the street or in 

 the grove, and is completed by June 10. The nest 

 is never found in the deep woods. Its maker is a 

 bird of the sunlight, and is sociable with man. The 

 haunts of the orioles are those grand trees which 

 the farmer leaves here and there in his field as shade 

 for his cattle, to lean over the brier-tangled fence 

 of the lane, or droop towards the dancing w r aters of 

 some rural river. "There is/' says Thomas Nut- 

 tall, "nothing more remarkable in the whole in- 

 stinct of our golden-robin than the ingenuity dis- 

 played in the fabrication of its nest, which is, in 

 fact, a pendulous, cylindric pouch of five to seven 

 inches in depth, usually suspended from near the 

 extremities of the high, drooping branches of trees 

 (such as the elm, the pear, or apple tree, wild- 

 cherry, weeping- willow, tulip-tree, or button- wood). " 



These words might in a general way apply to all 

 the Icteri, most of which inhabit North or South 

 America, have brilliant plumages, and build nests 

 of matchless workmanship, woven and entwined in 

 such a way as would defy the skill of the most 



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