1 62 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



gray, drab or almost white color, dotted at the large end with 

 purplish spots, and covered at the smaller end with a great 

 number of interesting lines of the same hue. Incubation lasts 

 about fourteen days, and the young leave the nest in about 

 the same length of time. 



"Two weeks elapsed, behold a helpless crew! 

 Claim all her care and affection too; 

 On wings of love the assiduous nurses fly, 

 Flowers, leaves and boughs, abundant food supply; 

 Glad chants their guardian as abroad he goes, 

 And waiving breezes rock them to repose." 



The song of the Baltimore oriole is a clear mellow whis- 

 tle, repeated at short intervals as he gleans among the trees. 

 F. Schuyler Mathews in his Wild Birds and Their Music, 

 says he "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 treatment of a good theme, 

 and chary way of singing it. He is lavish with calls and 

 chatterings, and devotes too much time to preliminaries be- 

 fore he begins on the song that he is well able to round out to 

 a finish." His "calls and chatterings" have had various inter- 

 pretations. Nuttall describes one as "tshippe-tshayia-too-too- 

 tshippe-tshippa-too-too." Major Bendire says his song is like 

 "hioh, hioh, tweet, tweet," and another something like, "whee- 

 he-he, whee-he-he, oh whee-he, he-woy-woy!" Mr. Butler de- 

 scribes one heard after the first of June as "who-ee, here-we- 

 are," or "who-ee-who-ee-who-ee-who." Mr. Cheney in giving 

 an account of one he heard on the 22d of May, 1884, and con- 

 tinuing thereafter through the season, says, "a remarkable 

 feature is that the words, 'murly, curly, key! chickerway, 

 chick-er-way, chick-er-way, chew' were as plainly formed as 

 the whipporwills' name when he tells it to all the hills." And 

 as Mathews adds, he "is not without the harsh, grating, un- 

 musical note that belongs to his family, icteridse, for some- 

 times you hear a scolding note issue from his bill that is 

 reminiscent of the grackle." 



By an exhaustive report Professor Beal has shown the 

 great value of the Baltimore oriole as a destroyer of injurious 

 insects. The report was based upon the examination of one 



