The Balthnore Oriole 5/ 



year. The males usually precede the females by two or three 

 days to their breeding grounds, and the same site is frequently 

 occupied for several seasons. It is very much attached to a 

 locality when once chosen for a home and is loath to leave it. 



Few birds are more devoted to each other than these 

 Orioles, and I am of the opinion that they remain mated through 

 life. Their favorite haunts in our eastern States are found in 

 'rather open country, along the roads bordered with shade 

 |i trees, creek bottoms, orchards and the borders of small 

 [timbered tracts. It is equally at home in villages or cities of 

 considerable size as long as they furnish suitaljle trees for 

 nesting sites. It shuns swampy and marshy tracts and exten- 

 sive forests; 



A very peculiar note, a long-drawn-out chattering, chae, 

 chae, chae, is apt to draw one's attention to it on its first 

 arrival; and this is more or less frequently uttered throughout 

 the season. 



This note is difficult to reproduce exactly, and I find its 

 songs still more so. One sounds somewhat like hioh, hioh, 

 tweet, tweet; another, something like whee-he-he, whee-he-he, oh 

 whee-he-he-woy-woy . This last is much more softly uttered 

 than the first. Mr. T. Nuttall describes one of their songs 

 as tshippe-tshayia-too-too-tshippe-tshtppa-too-too, and there are 

 Others impossible to render. The young after leaving the 

 nest utter a note like he-he-hae, and another like heek-heek-he, 

 varied occasionally by a low twittering. Shortly after their 

 arrival they sing almost incessantly when not eating, but later 

 in the season when they have their always hungry family to 

 provide for they are more silent. Their flight is strong, swift 

 and graceful and they are far more at home on the wing than 

 on the ground, where they are seldom seen except when 

 picking up some insect or in search of nesting material. 



