BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 283 
Their eggs, usually four, sometimes six, are flesh-colored, 
and not unfrequently with a bluish shade, with lines of 
lavender, over all of which are strongly marked scratches of 
brown and black. 
The species is one of those which the agriculturist and 
horticulturist ought to call “blessed,” and to which he should 
make an offering of all of his garden peas without a murmur, 
in view of its extensive destruction of canker-worms, cater- 
pillars, and other ruinous larve. Its marvelous beauty, song, 
and immeasurable service in the destruction of such indisput- 
able numbers of his enemies, should forever secure it immunity 
form his curses (for stealing his peas) as the cunning of the 
location secures it from his cats. 
The devotion of the parents to their nests and offspring has 
no more exalted illustration in bird-biography, exposing them- 
selves to all dangers and to death itself in their protection. 
Instances of the capture of the young are on record where the 
parents have followed them long distances and afterwards con- 
tinued to feed them through the bars of their cage till full 
grown. One kindred incident has found a place in North 
American Birds, ‘‘where the female entered her nest while he 
was in the act of severing the limb from which it was sus- 
pended, and persisted in remaining there until the nest had 
been cut off and taken into the house.” (Ridgway.) 
Mr. Washburn in his Red river valley report to me says: 
‘‘Hairly common everywhere, in the timber along streams. 
The richness and depth of color, reported as peculiar to 
western birds of this species, is particularly noticable in birds 
taken in the valley. The orange-yellow of some individuals 
noticed was of such a deep hue as to be almost scarlet.” These 
instances of intense coloration, come frequently under my obser- 
vation in many different species, but so far as individuals are 
involved, the difference is relatively no greater than those I 
observed on the Pacific coast. Amongst all the highly colored 
species, there is an annual advancement up to the fourth year, 
and in some, including the present species, to the fifth year, as 
extended, consecutive observations have established. 
For an instance, a young oriole of the species, when clam- 
bering out into the parapet ofits nest before being quite able to 
fly, was blown off by a sudden gustof wind, onto the ground quite 
near the residence of a friend who was very much interested 
in birds. His cat seized it instantly but being on the spot he 
rescued the victim, yet not until the cat had torn a piece of 
