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Canadian Record of Science. 



half of the United States east of the Great Plains, and is 

 welcomed and loved in every country home in that broad 

 land. In the Northern States it arrives rather late, and 

 is usually first seen, or heard, foraging amidst the early 

 bloom of the apple trees, where it searches for caterpillars 

 or feeds daintily on the surplus blossoms. Its nest 

 commands hardly less admiration than the beauty of 

 its plumage or the excellence of its song. Hanging from 

 the tip of the outermost bough of a stately elm, it is 

 almost inaccessible, and so strongly fastened as to bid 

 defiance to the elements. 



By watching an oriole which has a nest one may see it 

 searching among the smaller branches of some neighboring 

 tree, carefully examining each leaf for caterpillars, and 

 occasionally trilling a few notes to its mate. Observation 

 both in the field and laboratory shows that caterpillars 

 constitute the largest item of its fare. In 113 stomachs 

 they formed 34 per cent, of the food, and are eaten 

 in varying quantities during all the months in which the 

 bird remains in this country, although the fewest are 

 eaten in July, when a little fruit is also taken. The 

 other insects consist of beetles, bugs, ants, wasps, grass- 

 hoppers, and some spiders. The beetles are principally 

 click beetles, the larvae of which are among the most 

 destructive insects known ; and the bugs include plant 

 and bark lice, both very harmful, but so small and 

 obscure as to be passed over unnoticed by most birds. 

 Ants are eaten mostly in spring, grasshoppers in July and 

 August, and wasps and spiders with considerable regu- 

 larity throughout the season. 



Vegetable matter amounts to only a little more than 16 

 per cent, of the food during the bird's stay in the United 

 States, so that the possibility of the oriole doing much 

 damage to crops is very limited. The bird has been 

 accused of eating peas to a considerable extent, but 

 remains of peas were found in only two stomachs. One 



