8 



The Baltimore Oriole. 



the days seem all too short for the work 

 that has to be done. When the swinging 

 nest is completed the eggs are laid. They 

 are four or five in number, white marked 

 with dots and curious curving lines and 

 streaks, as if some one had been scratching 

 on them with a pen and very black ink. 



Now the female begins to sit upon her 

 eggs and the male is kept very busy. He 

 has to bring food to his mate, and also to 

 keep a sharp lookout for any enemies who 

 may be suspected of having designs against 

 his family. The presence of a strange dog 

 or cat in the vicinity of his nest will bring 

 him down to the lower branches of the 

 tree or to the top of a fence post with a 

 sharp rolling cry of anger and warning. 

 The Baltimore Oriole is not afraid of any- 

 thing that flies, and will attack most cour- 

 ageously any bird that may attempt to 

 alight in the tree where his nest is built. 

 We have seen one administer such a severe 

 thrashing to a marauding bluejay who was 

 prowling about his home, that the rascal 

 went off quite crestfallen and hid himself 

 in a cedar tree, where he staid half an hour 

 before he dared to venture out from its 

 sheltering branches. 



For two weeks the tender mother sits 

 upon her eggs, rocked by the soft breezes 

 and cheered by the love song of her de- 

 voted mate. Then the shells begin to 

 crack, and the blind, naked, helpless young 

 appear. The mother carefully throws out 

 of the nest every particle of eggshell that 

 might scratch their tender bodies, and soon 

 feeds them with the .soft msect food that 

 she has prepared for them. From this 

 time on both parents are busily at work 

 providing food for the young, which grow 

 hungrier and hungrier as they increase in 

 size. In the course of a couple of weeks 

 they are pretty well feathered, and now 

 they begin to make excursions to the door 

 of the nest, so that they can peep out into 

 the world about them and .see what is going 

 on there. The sides of the nest are straight 



up and down, and the young birds climb 

 up the walls as a woodpecker climbs up a 

 tree. Soon after they venture on this feat 

 their wings become strong enough to sup- 

 port them, and at length the bolde.st of 

 them all ventures to tumble off his perch 

 and take a short flight; and soon the nest is 

 deserted. 



Although the Oriole does not pos- 

 sess any very great powers of song, its 

 cheerful whistle is a pleasant sound, and it 

 has, according to Nuttall, considerable 

 powers of mimicry. He speaks of one 

 which imitated the whistle of the cardinal 

 redbird, the call of the Wilson's thrush and 

 the song of the robin, and indeed had such 

 a variety of unusual notes as often to de- 

 ceive the naturalist, who sometimes thought 

 he was hearing the notes of birds new to 

 him. 



The same author, in the course of his 

 very extended and interesting article on 

 the Baltimore Oriole, gives an account of a 

 male which he kept as a pet. He says : " I 

 have had a male bird in a state of domesti- 

 cation, raised from the nest very readily on 

 fresh minced meat soaked in milk. When 

 established, his principal food was scalded 

 Indian corn meal, on which he fed con- 

 tentedly, but was also fond of sweet cakes, 

 insects of all descriptions, and nearly every 

 kind of fruit. In short, he ate everything that 

 he would in a state of nature, and did not 

 refuse to taste and eat of everything but 

 the condiments which enter mto the multi- 

 farious diet of the human species. He was 

 literally omnivorous. No bird could be- 

 come more tame, allowing himself to be 

 handled with patient indifference, and some- 

 times with playfulness. The singular me- 

 chanical application of his bill was remark- 

 able and explains at once the ingenious art 

 employed by the species in weaving their 

 nest. If the folded hand was presented to 

 our familiar Oriole, he endeavored to open 

 it by in.serting his pointed and straight bill 

 between the closed fingers, and then by 



