200 N(.)RTII AMERICAN UfRDS. 



tlu' ir)tli of ^fiiy, and wore very cotntnoii amon^' the low oaks of that vi\i^ion. 

 III! s])c'ak.s of its .smijj; as very i)lousant, and esi)i;cially uit'lodious early in tlie 

 iiK.iiiiig, wlu'ii the l)ird is generally perehed on the sunny side or top of 

 an oak. 



At I'lij^i't Sound, aeuordinji; (o l>r. Cooper, these hirds do not arrive until 

 the lu'uinninjf of June, and are at no time very conunon there. He dc^serilies 

 tlicir liahits as similar to tlio.se of the spurius, they heinjj; shy and dillieult to 

 discover amonu the foliage. Their song is more like that of the Baltimore, 

 loud, clear, and varied. 



In his lieport on the birds of California, Dr. Cooper states that these hirds 

 arrive at San I'lego, from the south, about March 1 ; but at Fort Mohave, one 

 hundred and sixty niiles farther uertli, he .saw none until a month later. 

 Like the IJaltiuKJi'e Oriole, they re.sort to the open roads, gardens, and 

 orchards, ])utting themselves under the protection of man, and rei)ayiug him 

 both by their sweet melody and their usefulue.ss in destroying insects. They 

 keep cliieily in the trees and rarely descend to the ground, e.\cei)t to collect 

 materials for their nests. These are suspended fnjui the end of a branch, 

 and are constructed of fibrous grasses, horse-hairs, strings, bits of rags, wool, 

 hempen fibres of jdants, etc. At times only a single material is used, such 

 as horse-hair. These nests are neatly and closely interwoven in the form of 

 a deep bag or jiurse, and aie suspended by the edges from the forks of a 

 branch, near its end. Tliey have usually a depth of about four or five 

 inches, and a diameter of about three or three and a half In most cases 

 tliey are largely made of the flaxen fibres of wild lienipen plants, and by 

 ■strings of this are firmly bound around the ends of the twigs to which 

 they are suspended. They are lined within with fine, soft vegetable down. 

 In some nests tiie inner bark of the silkweed largely predominates. 



Dr. Cooper states tliat the eggs of Iiidlock's Oriole are, in nund)er, from 

 four to six. lie descriiies tiiem as bluish-white, with scattered, winding 

 streaks and hair-lines of black and reddish-brown near the larger end, 

 measuring .1)8 hy .60 of an inch. In the southern half of California they 

 are laid in the first or second week of May. At Santa Cruz, in l.SGG, he did 

 not observe any of this species until April o. 



Mr. Allen did not meet with this species in Western Kansas, and it is not 

 included in his list of Ijirds observed by him near Fort Hays. At Ogden 

 ami Salt Lake City, in li^tah, which he reached the first of September, Bul- 

 lock's Oriole had already migrated southward. 



In all tlu! fertile ])ortions of the country west of the ])lains, Mr. liidgway 

 found Ihdlock's Oriole — the western re])resentative of tiio Ualtimore — ex- 

 tremely abundant. In ]\Iay, when the valley of the Truckee, near Pyramid 

 Lake, was visited, he observed great nund)ers feeding upon the buds of the 

 grease-wood, in company with the Louisiana Tanager and the Black-headed 

 Gro.sl)eaks. In certain localities there was scarcely a tree that did not con- 

 tain one or more nests of these birds, and as many as five have been found in 



