ORCHARD ORIOLE. 43 
ORCHARD ORIOLE. — ORIOLUS MUTATUS.— 
Fies. 11, 12, 13, 14. 
Peale’s Museum, No. 1508. — Bastard Baltimore, Catesby, i. 49.—Le Baltimore 
Batard, De Buffon, iii. 233. Pl. enl. 506, — Oriolus Spurius, Gmelin, Syst. i. p. 
389.— Lath. Syn. ii. p. 433, 20, p. 437, 24. — Bartram, p. 290. 
ICTERUS SPURIUS. — Bonararte. 
{cterus Spurius, Bonap. Synop. p. 51.—The Orchard Oriole, Aud. i. 221, pl. xlii. 
THERE are no circumstances, relating to birds, which tend so much 
to render their history obscure and perplexing, as the various changes 
of color which many of them undergo. These changes are in some 
cases periodical ; in others progressive; and are frequently so extra- 
ordinary, that, unless the naturalist has resided for years in the 
country which the birds inhabit, and has examined them at almost 
every season, he is extremely liable to be mistaken and imposed on 
by their novel appearance. Numerous instances of this kind might 
be cited, from the pages of European writers, in which the same bird 
has been described two, three, and even four different times, by the 
same person, and each time as a different kind. The species we are 
now about to examine is a remarkable example of this; and as it has 
never, to my knowledge, been either accurately figured or described, 
I have devoted one plate to the elucidation of its history. 
The Count de Buffon, in introducing what he supposed to be the 
male of this bird, but which appears evidently to have been the female 
of the Baltimore Oriole, makes the following observations, which-I 
give in the words of his translator: — “This bird is so called, (Spuri- 
ous Baltimore,) because the colors of its plumage are not so lively as 
in the preceding, (Baltimore O.) In fact, when we compare these 
birds, and find an exact correspondence in every thing except the 
colors, and not even in the distribution of these, but only in the 
different tints they assume, we cannot hesitate to infer that the 
Spurious Baltimore is a variety of a more generous race, degenerated 
by the influence of climate, or some other accidental cause.” 
How the influence of climate could affect one portion of a species 
and not the other, when both reside in the same climate, and feed 
nearly on the same food; or what accidental cause could produce a 
difference s> striking, and also so regular, as exists hetween the two, 
are, I confess, matters beyond my comprehension. But if it be rec- 
ollected that the bird which the Count was thus philosophizing upon, 
was nothing more than the female Baltimore Oriole, which exactly 
corresponds to the description of his male Bastard Baltimore, the 
difficulties at once vanish, and with them the whole superstructure of 
theory founded on this mistake. Dr. Latham, also, while he confesses 
the great confusion and uncertainty that prevail between the True and 
Bastard Baltimore, and their females, considers it highly probable that 
the whole will be found to belong to one and the same species, in 
