BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 281 
I have never known them to bring out more than one brood in 
the season. After the young are sufficiently grown to fly they 
disappear from their ordinary localities and are afterwards 
less frequently seen, except by those familiar with their post 
nidifying habits. Their distribution throughout the State is 
universal. Mr. Washburn and many others report it common 
in districts explored by them. 
Note.—Authors differ as to the pensile character of the 
Orchard Oriole’s nest. In his Birds of New England, Samuels 
on page 3847 says: “It is not pensile, but is built on the 
branch.” Langille says an page 245 of his ‘‘Our Birds in 
their Haunts:’—The nest is hung by the upper edge to a limb.” 
I have never seen a nest on a limb, as the former states, and 
from the entire mechanism of it I ean not see how it could be 
thus placed, but while always hung by the upper edge, I have 
met instances when it received substantial support from a 
fortuitous limb under it which was firmly secured to it. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Bill slender, attenuated, considerably decurved; tail moder- 
ately graduated; head and neck all around, wings, interscap- 
ular region of the back and tail feathers, black; rest of under 
parts, lower part of back to tail, lesser upper wing coverts 
and the lower one, brownish-chestnut; a narrow line across 
the wing and the extreme outer edges of quills, white. 
Length, 7.75; wing, 3.25; tail, 2.60. 
Habitat, United States west to the Plains. 
ICTERUS GALBULA (L.). (507). 
BALTIMORE ORIOLE, 
Few of the birds spending their summers in Minnesota 
arrive with more pronounced regularity than the Baltimore 
Oriole. Years in succession he had not varied three days 
from the tenth of May. 'The very characteristic note of the 
male upon his first appearance will arrest the attention of 
anyone enough to secure a careful search for him, when his 
unmistakable plumage settles his identity for everyone. The 
females usually arrive about three days later, rarely more, but 
not infrequently have they come within twenty-four hours. In 
the interval between the arrival of the sexes, the males have 
avery peculiar, clear, strong, whistling association of about 
three or four notes, which are at once exchanged for a beauti- 
ful, pathetic variety, when she has come. They sing quite 
volubly, and voluptuously while pairing, and only less so dur- 
ing incubation, but become comparatively silent afterwards, 
until they retire southward not far from the 30th day of August. 
