164 PEPACTON 



birds, the little sparrow, in some localities, was 

 accused of being the depredator. But he is inno- 

 cent. He never touches fruit of any kind, but 

 lives upon seeds and insects. What attracted this 

 sparrow to the vineyards in such numbers was 

 mainly the covert they afforded from small hawks, 

 and probably also the seeds of various weeds that 

 had been allowed to ripen there. The grape-de- 

 stroyer was a bird of another color, namely, the 

 Baltimore oriole. One fruit-grower on the Hudson 

 told me he lost at least a ton of grapes by the birds, 

 and in the western part of New York and in Ohio 

 and in Canada, I hear the vineyards suffered severely 

 from the depredations of the oriole. The oriole 

 has a sharp, dagger-like bill, and he seems to be 

 learning rapidly how easily he can puncture fruit 

 with it. He has come to be about the worst cherry 

 bird we have. He takes the worm first, and then 

 he takes the cherry the worm was after, or rather 

 he bleeds it; as with the grapes, he carries none 

 away with him, but wounds them all. He is wel- 

 come to all the fruit he can eat, but why should he 

 murder every cherry on the tree, or every grape in 

 the cluster? He is as wanton as a sheep-killing 

 dog, that will not stop with enough, but slaughters 

 every ewe in the flock. The oriole is peculiarly 

 exempt from the dangers that beset most of our 

 birds : its nest is all but impervious to the rain, and 

 the squirrel, or the jay, or the crow cannot rob it 

 without great difficulty. It is a pocket which it 

 would not be prudent for either jay or squirrel to 



