WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



Many persons believe that there is a constant 

 tendency in birds to vary their architecture to suit 

 their surroundings, in accordance with climate, 

 greater or less readiness of certain materials, and 

 security. The Baltimore oriole affords a good il- 

 lustration of this tendency. Like the swallows, 

 robin, bluebird, pewit, and others, the oriole has 

 abandoned the wilds for the proximity to man's 

 settlements, doing it chiefly for two reasons the 

 greater abundance of insect food and protection 

 from hawks, owls, and crows, which are fewer in 

 number and less bold in the clearings. 



In the swamps of the Gulf States, the Baltimore, 

 finding no necessity for great warmth or shelter 

 from chilling winds, fabricates an airy nest of 

 Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides). Audubon 

 described and figured such a one, but the exact 

 truth of Audubon 's description was rather doubted 

 until the Boston Society of Natural History re- 

 ceived other similar nests from Florida. In these 

 cases the bird chose material both easily obtainable 

 and perfectly suited to the temperature, in pref- 

 erence to the flax and felt which it would have used 

 in the North. 



We may suppose that the oriole, having learned 

 that the place for its home safest from all maurad- 



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