46 Bird - Lore 
the bird passes from nestling to adult, and these proved very puzzling to the 
early ornithologists. In fact, it was left for that painstaking bird student, Alex- 
ander Wilson, properly to explain the several plumages of this bird. The old male 
is shown at the top of the accompanying plate in his chestnut and black dress, 
while the female at all times is in the olive-and-yellow plumage shown in the 
lowest figure. The male in its nestling plumage, and during the first autumn, 
is similar to the adult female; but by the next spring we find that 
Plumage he has acquired a black throat, such as we see in the middle 
figure; so that we often find one nest attended by a black-throated, 
olive-green male, while the proprietor of the next is clad in chestnut and black. 
To add to the complication, some of the olive-green males have a part of the tail 
feathers black, and have black and chestnut spots on other parts of the body. 
Some ornithologists are of the opinion that these birds are in their second year 
breeding plumage, while the black and chestnut birds are in the third; but it 
seems probable that they represent merely individual variations, and that all 
the males are in the black and chestnut dress by their second nesting-season. 
At any rate, the male Orchard Oriole is a good example of the interesting 
problems that are encountered in the study of sequence of plumages and molting. 
In this connection, it may be stated that similar differences between breeding 
males of the first and second year may be detected in other species, though they 
are not usually so pronounced. The Baltimore Oriole is much 
Molt duller the first year, and the Scarlet Tanager and Rose-breasted 
Grosbeak have olive or brown wing- and tail-feathers, instead 
of black ones. All these changes, too, are brought about by a molt or renewal of 
the feathers, either in the late summer after the breeding-season (postnuptial 
molt) or in the early spring (prenuptial molt). The feathers themselves do not 
change color, and wherever changes of plumage such as these take place they are 
produced by the replacement of feathers of one color by those of another. 
The Orchard Oriole does not range so far north as does the Baltimore Oriole. 
It breeds from North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, central New 
York and Massachusetts, to northern Florida, the Gulf coast and northern 
Mexico, but does not range normally west of Kansas, Nebraska 
Range and Texas. In the northern part of its range, too, it is often rare 
and local, and is greatly outnumbered by the Baltimore. In the 
southern and lower Middle states, however, it is abundant and outnumbers the 
Baltimore. In winter it*retires to Central America, occurring all the way from 
southern Mexico to Colombia. It reaches the southern border of the United 
States about April 1, and the latitude of Washington and St. Louis about April 
28. In the autumn we see only a few after September 1; indeed, it would seem that 
they started south before the postnuptial molt began, as I have never seen an 
autumnal molting bird from the United States. 
Duller in color and in many other respects less striking than his relative, the 
Baltimore, the modest Orchard Oriole has always had to take second place 
