BALTIMOEE OEIOLE 59 



is worth its weight in gold as an insect destroyer. 

 New Englanders are to be congratulated that in 

 the towns where they are having such a serious 

 time with the insect pests the Orioles are common 

 enough to give them material help. In Farming- 

 ton, Connecticut, with a very incomplete census of 

 the village, I once found nine or ten pairs of nest- 

 ing Orioles. 



When the birds are such common villagers one 

 has a good opportunity to watch them make their 

 nests, and it is then that the full perfection of their 

 long, slender bill is seen (see Fig. 112, p. 192), 

 for they are weavers with ready-made weaving 

 needles for sewing the hairs and delicate fibres in 

 and out. The Oriole bill is as efficient an instru- 

 ment for weaving as the short bill of the Swallow 

 (see Fig. 120, p. 193) is for rolling mud pellets. 

 The taste of the Oriole leads it to hang its nest 

 to the most flexible swaying branch it can find, 

 while the Swallow's taste leads it to build against 

 an immovable rafter, and the Bluebird's to hide 

 away inside a wooden house ; for individuality 

 and adaptability are almost as strong in birds as 

 in men. Though the long pocket of the Oriole, 

 moving with every breeze, seems a frail cradle 

 for a brood of heavy nestlings, in reality it is 

 so skillfully attached to its supporting branches 

 that it has been known to hold firm during a 

 cyclone which swept down most of the other nests 

 in a neighborhood. Oriole eggs like others hidden 



