Vol. V, No. 3. 



ALBION, N. Y., MAECH, 1888. 



Published Monthly. 

 50c Peb Yeak. 



Icterus Spurrus — Eastern Race. 

 J. M. W., Norwich, Conn. 



The Orchard Oriole comes to its summer 

 home in Southern Connecticut just before 

 the apple-trees break into efflorescence; to 

 be exact, and speaking by the record, on 

 the 6th and 7th of May. Though return- 

 ing with the Baltimore Oriole, thencefor- 

 ward there is no association of the congen- 

 ers. True, both have a penchant for 

 apple-trees, and a common instinct for 

 safety makes each species often select the 

 pear-tree at our back-door for a building 

 site. But in the tops of the great elms, 80 

 f eeet from the ground, where swings many 

 a cradle of the Baltimore, is never seen the 

 cup of gold filagree of his mahogany- 

 colored cousin. It is well for the singing 

 bugle-call of Baltimore to reach us mellowed 

 and softened from those lofty . arcades, but 

 /. »puriug must pour its flood of summer 

 melody into our very ears from a lowlier 

 perch. 



There were no On chard Oriole's eggs to 

 be had here a generation ago and to-day the 

 bird itself finds no place in our farmer's 

 limited avian list. But it is here to stay all 

 the same and its eggs no rarity now. Find- 

 ing the seasons of lessening rigor, the inva- 

 ders spread from the South-west corner of 

 the State along the shore, and remaining 

 litoral birds to us for some years, have now 

 crept up our great water ways the Conn., 

 the Thames, and the Housatonic, and be 

 come generally dispersed about the State. 

 Though shooting a specimen here now and 

 and then, and finding it breeding rarely 

 along the Sound, it was not till June 19th, 

 1879, that 1 took its nest near our city; nor 

 shall I soon forget the manner of taking it. 

 Reader, did you ever go birds'-nesting at 



night? Two miles south of the city I bad 

 marked the pair of new-cornel's, building on 

 the extremity of an apple-limb, 20 feet irom 

 the ground near a farmer's house. Now 

 this farmer had just prosecuted some boys 

 for breaking up a turkey's nest, and was 

 not suprjosed to be open to any argument 

 or allurements of a devotee of our beloved 

 science. A raid by day being put of the 

 question, I determined to take that clutch 

 of eggs by night; so impressing our coach- 

 man into service and taking a 24-foot ladder 

 in a lumber-wagon, we drove at 2 :45, of a 

 dark morning to the scene of action. After 

 falling over a stone wall with the ladder on 

 top of us, we managed to raise our burden near 

 where I had marked the birds down, though 

 it was too dark to see the nest on the out- 

 line of the limb ; but while my assistant 

 steadied with his weight below, I started up 

 the ladder which seemed to me as I climbed 

 to be reared straight on end and reaching up 

 into outer darkness itself. But as I groped 

 for the top round, something like a black 

 bat of the night slipped away through my 

 legs, and I knew then we had made a close 

 guess as to the position of the nest. Secur- 

 ing the trio of eggs, I sawed off several feet 

 of the bunchy limb including the nest, and, 

 as I afterward found, about a peck of green 

 apples the size of hog- walnuts. Just as we 

 strapped the ladder to the wagon and start- 

 ed for home there was a flash of light in the 

 farm house, the door opened, and out 

 bounded a fierce bull-dog only to find that 

 the robbers had taken wing. Though nine 

 yeare have passed, the brown dry leaves and 

 shrivelled clusters of fruit still adhere to 

 that limb which hangs in our cellar to this 

 day. 



The next season, in June 1880, taken in 

 the city limits, a boy brought me a nest 

 and eggs of this species to determine. I gave 

 him a set each of Buteos and Osprey's for 



