TRUPIAL. 



Icterus icterus Ridgway. 



Few of our North American birds are so strikingly beautiful as the Orioles. 

 Although belonging to the Blackbird family, they are not gregarious, and they also 

 depart from their relatives in the habit of being strictly arboricole. While the other 

 members of the family, a;lmost without exception, pick up their food from the ground, 

 the Orioles mainly subsist on food found by them in the trees and bushes. The bill of 

 the Orioles is slenderer and more acute, and the feet are weaker, exclusively fitted for 

 perching, not for walking. The Orioles are mostly distributed over tropical America. 

 Only three species reach the interior of our country and among these the Baltimore Oriole 

 is the most familiar. Another species, the Orchard Oriole, is abundant in the Central 

 and Southern States, while Bullock's Oriole is a common summer sojourner in CaUfomia. 

 Nelson's Oriole penetrates into the interior of Arizona and California, while the rest 

 merely reach our southern border from tropical America. On the lower Rio Grande the 

 following species are found more or less abundantly: Bullock's Oriole, Orchard and 

 Hooded Oriole, Audubon's and Scott's Oriole. No other birds of the lower Rio Grande 

 are such beautiful features of the landscape. Quite recently a new Oriole has been dis- 

 covered in southern Louisiana and Mississippi. As this variety has, as yet, no common 

 name, I propose to call it Bendire's Oriole, in commemoration of the distinguished orni- 

 thologist, who first made the facts about its occurrence in our territory known. Every- 

 where in this country I have found one or the other Oriole during the breeding season, 

 with the exception of central and southern Florida, where even the Orchard Oriole does 

 not occur. 



The Orioles do not move in large conspicuous flocks like their congeners, the Black- 

 birds, and they are mostly seen in small assemblages during the season of migration. 

 At other times they live in pairs only. The plumage of most of the species is very 

 beautifiil, the prevailing color being a bright orange or yellow, which is relieved by a 

 deep black. The Orchard Oriole shows a combination of a rich chestnut-brown and 

 black. Wherever these birds occur they make themselves prominent by a very loud, 

 liquid, and mellow song. All excel by their architectural assiduity, each species building 

 exquisite pensile nests, which usually hang down fi"om the horizontal branches of large 

 trees. All members of the genus are denizens of trees, isolated or in groups, avoiding low 

 thickets and the deep interior of woodlands entirely. Many of them have a predilection 

 for ornamental trees and orchards near the habitations of man. Although eating fruits 

 of all kinds, they are of great value to the farmer and horticulturist, as their main diet 

 consists of incalculable numbers of noxious insects, which infest the trees. Their 

 Eesthetical value should also find the appreciation of every intelligent person : They are 

 not only exceedingly beautiful birds, but they are also very lively, delightful, and happy 

 denizens of our groves and woodlands. The pair is so tenderly attached to each other, 

 that great sorrow and distress is expressed in their notes and manners if an accident 

 has happened to one or the other. Their flight is quick and graceful — in a word, they 

 are almost ideal birds in every respect. 



The Trupial, the subject of this sketch, is a common bird in all the northern 



