THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 840 



" There is nothing more remarkable in the whole instinct of our 

 Golden Robin than the ingenuity disjjlayed in the fabrication of its 

 nest, which is, in fact, a pendulous, cylindric pouch of five to seven 

 inches in depth, usually suspended from near the extremities of the 

 high drooping branches of trees (such as the elm, the pear, or ajDple 

 tree, wild cherry, weeping willow, tulip-tree, or buttonwood). It 

 is begun by firmly fastening natural strings of the flax of the silk- 

 weed, or swamp hollyhock, or stout artificial threads, around two or 

 more forked twigs, corresponding to the intended width and depth 

 of the nest. With the same materials, willow-down, or any acci- 

 dental ravellings, strings, thread, sewing-silk, tow, or wool, that may 

 be lying near the neighboring houses, or around grafts of trees, they 

 interweave and fabricate a sort of coarse cloth into the form in- 

 tended, towards the bottom of which they place the real nest, made 

 chiefly of lint, wiry grass, horse and cow hair : sometimes, in defect 

 of hair, lining the interior with a mixture of slender strips of 

 smooth vine-bark, and rarely with a few feathers ; the whole being 

 of a considerable thickness, and more or less attached to the exter- 

 nal pouch. Over the top, the leaves, as they grow out, form a 

 verdant and agreeable canopy, defending the young from the sun 

 and rain. There is sometimes a considerable difference in the 

 manufacture of these nests, as well as in the materials which enter 

 into their composition. Both sexes seem to be equally adepts at 

 this sort of labor ; and I have seen the female alone perform the 

 whole without any assistance, and the male also complete this 

 laborious task nearly without the aid of his consort, who, however, 

 in general, is the principal worker." 



The eggs are four or five in number. Tliey are of a flesli- 

 color, witli sometimes a bluish tint : they are marked with 

 obscure lines of lavender, over which are irregiilar scratches 

 and lines, as if done with a pen, of vandyke-brown and 

 black. Their dimensions vary from 1 by .72 to .88 by .i)6 

 inch. The food of this bird, and also of the preceding 

 species, consists of caterpillars and other injurious insects : 

 great numbers of the hairy caterpillars are destroyed ; and 

 sometimes a large nest of tlio apple-tree caterpillars is de- 

 populated in a few days. The Orioles are certainly, there- 



