144 BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 



Though birds of the same species have, generally speaking, a common 

 form of building, yet, contrary to the usually received opinion, they do 

 not build exactly in the same manner. As much difference will be found 

 in the style, neatness, and finishing of the nests of the Baltimores, as in 

 their voices. Some appear far superior workmen to others ; and proba- 

 bly age may improve them in this as it does in their colors. I have a 

 number of their nests now before me, all completed, and with eggs. 

 One of these, the neatest, is in the form of a cylinder, of five inches 

 diameter, and seven inches in depth, rounded at bottom. The opening 

 at top is narrowed, by a horizontal covering, to two inches and a half 

 in diameter. The materials are flax, hemp, tow, hair, and wool, woven 

 into a complete cloth ; the whole tightly sewed through and through 

 with long horse-hairs, several of which measure two feet in length. The 

 bottom is composed of thick tufts of cow-hair, sewed also with strong 

 horse-hair. This nest was hung on the extremity of the horizontal 

 branch of an apple-tree, fronting the south-east ; was visible one hun- 

 dred yards off, though shaded by the sun ; and was the work of a very 

 beautiful and perfect bird. The eggs are five, white, slightly tinged 

 with flesh color, marked on the greater end with purple dots, and on the 

 other parts with long hair -like lines, intersecting each other in a variety 

 of directions. I am thus minute in these particulars, from a wish to 

 point out the specific difference between the true and bastard Baltimore, 

 which Dr. Latham and some others suspect to be only the same bird in 

 different stages of color. 



So solicitous is the Baltimore to procure proper materials for his nest, 

 that, in the season of building, the women in the country are under the 

 necessity of narrowly watching their thread that may chance to be out 

 bleaching, and the farmer to secure his young grafts ; as the Baltimore 

 finding the former, and the strings which tie the latter, so well adapted 

 for his purpose, frequently carries off both ; or should the one be too heavy, 

 and the other too firmly tied, he will tug at them a considerable time 

 before he gives up the attempt. Skeins of silk, and hanks of thread, 

 have been often found, after the leaves were fallen, hanging round the 

 Baltimore's nest ; but so woven up, and entangled, as to be entirely 

 irreclaimable. Before the introduction of Europeans, no such material 

 could have been obtained here ; but with the sagacity of a good archi- 

 tect, he has improved this circumstance to his advantage ; and the 

 strongest and best materials are uniformly found in those parts by which 

 the whole is supported. 



Their principal food consists of caterpillars, beetles and bugs, particu- 

 larly one of a brilliant glossy green, fragments of which I have almost 

 always found in their stomach, and sometimes these only. 



The song of the Baltimore is a clear mellow whistle, repeated at short 

 intervals as he gleans among the branches. There is in it a certain 



