Orchard Orioles; Oropendolas 829 



and orchards, and are especially at home in villages and small cities where 

 there are numerous shade trees. They are much attached to their nesting 

 sites and return year after year to the same tree, and not infrequently to the 

 same nest. The pair show a great affection for each other, and Major Bendire 

 thinks they must mate for life. The nest is usually pensile and attached to 

 slender drooping branches of the elm. maple, birch, weeping willows, and similar 

 trees. It is deeply pouch-shaped and made of vegetable fibers, grapevine 

 bark, twine, yarn, etc., and neatly lined with cotton, fur, hair, mosses, fine 

 grasses, and almost anything that comes handy. The nest is usually so placed 

 as to be shaded by a spray of leaves. The eggs, four to six in number, are 

 grayish white, covered with blotches and irregularly shaped lines and tracings 

 of black or brown. These birds feed almost exclusively on insects, destroying 

 a great variety of larvae, spiders, caterpillars, etc., and deserve the most careful 

 protection. 



Orchard Oriole. Wholly different from this species is the Orchard Oriole 

 (1. spurius), also of the eastern United States. It is a smaller bird, the male 

 being mostly uniform black except the rump, upper tail-coverts, lesser and 

 middle wing-coverts, and under parts, which are a uniform rich chestnut. Its 

 center of abundance is perhaps the states bordering the Mississippi Valley, 

 where, as its names implies, it frequents orchards, and although not a shy bird 

 is difficult to observe closely as it flits about the foliage, constantly changing its 

 position in the never ending search for insects. The nest, although usually 

 more or less basket or hammock like, is not infrequently placed in the crotch 

 'formed by several small limbs. It is composed of fine, tough, freshly dried grasses 

 closely interwoven and lined with plant down, cotton, etc. They usually lay 

 four or five bluish white eggs, which are marked and scrawled with black or 

 brown. 



Some of the other forms are the Arizona Hooded Oriole (/. cucullatus nel- 

 soni), a handsome bird of our southwestern borders, Scott's Oriole (/. parisorum) 

 of somewhat similar range, and Bullock's Oriole (I. bullocki) of western North 

 America from southern British Columbia to the Mexican plateau. 



Oropendolas. It would be interesting, if we had the space, to describe 

 more of these beautiful birds, but it would require a separate volume to ade- 

 quately portray them, and we can only devote a few final words to the Oro- 

 pendolas and Caciques. As an example of the former, we may take Wagler's 

 Oropendola (Zarhynchus wagleri), a native of southern Mexico and thence 

 southward to Peru. It is a large bird, some ten inches long, and has the plu- 

 mage of back, with scapulars, wings, middle pair of tail-feathers, breast, abdomen 

 and thighs black, more or less greenish glossy ; the tail yellow (except the middle 

 pair of feathers), and the rest of plumage dark chestnut. It is chiefly remark- 

 able, however, for the shape of the bill, this being swollen at base to form a broad, 

 rounded frontal shield. The following account of the habits of this species is 

 taken from Richmond, who met with it in Costa Rica, He says: "A colony 

 was observed nest building on the Rio Frio early in March. The actual work 

 of securing material and constructing the nests seemed to fall upon the females, 



