BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 53 



exultant love, then curving into a low, soft ca- 

 dence, vibrating with caressing tenderness, it 

 finally rounds off with broken notes of entreaty so 

 full of courtly devotion and submission, yet, withal, 

 so musical and earnest with tender love, that you 

 feel sure his suit can never be denied. 



When the oriole comes to build his nest and 

 you compare his work with that of the robin, you 

 feel that you have an artistic Queen Anne beside 

 a rude mud hovel. The term hang-nest is strictly 

 applicable. The birds are skillful weavers and 

 build long, delicate, pocket-shaped nests that look 

 as if made of gray moss. These they hang from 

 the end of a branch, as if thinking of the first 

 line of the old nursery rhyme, 



" When the wind blows the cradle will rock, 

 When the bough breaks the cradle will fall," 



and, indeed, the cradles are built by such clever 

 workmen that the bough must needs break to give 

 them a fall. The nest looks as if it barely touched 

 the twigs from which it hangs, but when you ex- 

 amine it you may find that the gray fibres have 

 woven the wood in so securely that the nest would 

 .have to be torn in pieces before it could be loos- 

 ened from the twigs. What is the nest made of ? 

 It shines as if woven with threads of gray silk, 

 but it must be field silk from the stems of plants. 

 And the horse hairs ? Mr. Burroughs tells of one 

 oriole who went bravely into the back part of a 

 horse stable for its hair lining. Sometimes a bit 



