THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 27 



not a whit behind adults in musical attainments. Indeed, I have sometimes 

 fancied that the handicap of juvenile garb serves only to provoke superlative 

 efforts in song on the part of the youthful aspirant. Certain it is that the 

 two-year-old birds are often happily mated, and their music-loving wives are 

 not always won from the ranks of those whom we should think "ower young 

 to marry yet." 



The nest of the Orchard Oriole is a beautiful and ingenious creation. 

 Green grass blades of the tougher sorts are twisted and wrapped and inter- 

 woven with the skill of a lace-maker, until a pouch some three inches wide 

 by four inches deep is formed. This is made fast by the brim to the spread- 

 ing forks near the tip of some horizontal apple-limb, somewhat after the 

 fashion of the Vireo's; or else, and more commonly, it is slung between two 

 or three spreading, upright forks. In the latter case it is tightly lashed, for its 

 entire depth, to two or more of the ascending branches, thus more closely as- 

 similating certain types of Redwings' nests. Wilson states that when the 

 descending branches of the weeping willow are chosen, the nest is made 

 deeper and less rigid so as to allow for greater freedom of movement in the 

 wind. The same observer once examined a grass-strand taken from the 

 Orchard's nest, and found that in its thirteen inches of length it had been 

 hooked through and returned some thirty-four times. 



When first constructed, of bright green grass, this Oriole's nest is at the 

 acme of invisibility, but as the season advances the color bleaches out, so that 

 the young find themselves in a straw-colored cradle, which not infrequently 

 invites rather than forbids attention. In our latitudes soft materials such as 

 wool, plant-down, feathers, or even horse-hair, are used for lining ; but further 

 south the nest is said to be usually quite unlined. 



No. II. 



BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 



A. O. U. No. 507. Icterus galbula (Linn.). 



Synonyms. — Firebird ; Hangbird ; Hangnest ; Golden Robin. 



Description. — Adult male: Black and orange; head and neck all around, 

 a "tongue" on the lower throat, upper back, and scapulars, wings (except lesser 

 and greater coverts), and greater part of tail above, black,— warm and glossy ante- 

 riorly, duller on wings and tail; tips of greater wing-coverts, and edging of 

 quills and secondaries white ; the remaining plumage orange. The orange varies 

 in intensity from the paler plumage of the young males to the rich orange-red 

 of the oldest birds. Female: General color orange-olive, clearest below and 



