The Orchard Oriole 45 
ground, in search of other insects that lurk there. Mr. William Brewster has also 
noticed these birds in South Carolina hovering before trumpet 
Food flowers, sipping honey after the manner of Hummingbirds. In 
late summer, when the family groups go foraging about the coun- 
try, berries of various kinds seem to constitute a large portion of their food; 
but, so far as I am aware, they never do serious damage to cultivated fruit. 
On this subject of food Major Bendire writes: ‘‘Few birds do more good 
and less harm than our Orchard Oriole, especially to the. fruit grower. The 
bulk of its food consists of small beetles, plant lice, flies, hairless caterpillars, 
cabbage worms, grasshoppers, rose-bugs, and larvee of all kinds, while the few 
berries it may help itself to: during the short time they last are many times paid 
for in the greater number of noxious insects destroyed, and it certainly deserves 
the fullest protection.” 
The nest of the Orchard Oriole is usually supported upon slender twigs 
in the top of an apple tree. It is somewhat pensile, but much shorter and more 
rigid than the long pocket-like nest of the Baltimore; in fact, it is usually nearly 
spherical, with the opening somewhat constricted. It is made 
Nest of fine, dry, greenish or yellow grass, elaborately interwoven 
and lined, especially on the bottom, with soft vegetable down 
from thistle blooms, buttonwood seeds, etc. Wilson states that he carefully 
unwound a single strand of grass from one of these nests and found it to be 
thirteen inches long and to have been looped through the other 
Eggs strands thirty-four times. The eggs are grayish white with lav- 
ender spots and blackish blotches and ‘pen marks,’ similar to 
those of the Baltimore, but smaller and more coarsely marked. They are three to 
five in number, and measure 80 x 55 hundredths of an inch. 
I have noticed that Orchard Orioles and Kingbirds often nest in the same 
tree in the orchards of southern Pennsylvania, and was interested to find that 
other observers have noticed the same thing in Maryland and South Carolina. 
For some reason or other, the pugnacious Flycatcher, who usually drives all 
other birds from the vicinity of his nest-tree, seems able to live on the best of 
terms with the modest Orchard Oriole. 
Audubon, describing the habits of the Orchard Oriole in Louisiana, states 
that the male has a habit of mounting on the wing during the mating season, 
jerking his tail and body, flapping his wings and singing with remarkable im- 
petuosity. . . . These gambols and carollings are performed frequently during 
the day, the intervals being employed in ascending or descending along the 
branches and twigs of different trees, in search of insects or larve. In doing 
this they rise on their legs, seldom without jetting the tail, stretch their neck, 
seize the prey and emit a single note. At other times, it is seen bending its body 
downward in a curved posture, with head greatly inclined upward, to peep at 
the underparts of the leaves so as not to suffer any grub to escape its vigilance. 
The plumage of the male Orchard Oriole is subject to striking changes as 
