ARIZONA HOODED ORIOLE. 275 



undergrowth ; but wherever found, the inevitable Spanish moss enters largely or wholly 

 into their composition. So durable is this moss that it lasts for years, and as a con- 

 sequence there are everywhere ten old ne^ts to one new one. The heart of the moss, 

 when separated from its white covering, becomes the "curled hair' of commerce. The 

 Hooded Oriole takes this dry vegetable hair, and ingeniously weaves it into the heart 

 of a living truss of moss, making a secure and handsome home. I found one no higher 

 than my head, and others thirty feet or moi-e from the ground. They make a great 

 ado when their home is invaded. Their complement of eggs is four, but sometimes five 

 are found." 



These observations were made at Hidalgo in 1877. In the following year 

 Mr. Sennett again visited the lower Rio Grande and made his headquarters at Lomita 

 Ranch, a little further up the rive;r. "At Lomita Ranch," he writes, "the edges of forests 

 and groves, hung with pendant trusses of Spanish moss, afford excellent places for 

 nesting. They were continually peering about the thatched roof of our house and the 

 arbors adjoining for insects. They were more familiar than any of the other Orioles 

 about the ranch. There is little to add to my former observations. One nest was dis- 

 covered in a corn-field, ma4e of Spanish moss, which was interwoven with a couple of 

 leaves of two corn-stalks^ which it thus bound together ; another was found in a truss 

 of Spanish moss, having dried grasses for lining, instead of the usual dead and black 

 hair-like moss. In several nests w^ere horse hair and tufts of goats' wool." Nests were 

 found by Mr. Sennett from April 25 to May 25. 



Eggs three to five in number, white, speckled, chiefly on the larger end, with hair- 

 brow^n, usually m^ed w^ith a few small, black specks or lines. 



NAMES: Hooded Qriolg. 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: ICTERUS CUCULLATUS SwAmsoa (1827). Pendalinus cucullatus Bona.p. (1850). 



DESCRIPTION: Tail, much graduated. Adult male: "Wings, a rather narrow band across the back, tail 

 and a patch starting as a narrow frontal baud, involving the eyes, anterior half of cheek, chin, and 

 throat, and ending as a rounded patch on the upper part of breast, black." Hood and "rest of body, 

 oraijge-yellow. Two bands on the wing and the edges of the quills, white. Female without the black 

 patch of the throat; the upper parts generally yellowish-green, brown on the back, beneath, 

 yellowish." (B. B. & R.) 



Length, 6.50 to 8.50 inches; wing, 3.30 to 3.60; tail, 3.50 to 4.20 inches. 



ARIZONA HOODED ORIOLE. 



Icterus cucullatus nelsoni Ridgway. 

 Plate XXXI. Pig. 3. 



One of the most conspicuous and beautiful birds of southern Arizona and California 

 is this variety of the Hooded Oriole, which is known by ornithologists as the Arizona 

 Hooded OrioijE or Nelson's Oriole. In southern California, where it breeds abundantly 

 in the California fan palms (Wasbingtonia Blifera) and gum trees {Bucarlyptus) , it is 

 known as the "Tailor Oriole," "Tailor-bird," and "California Tailor-bird," in allusion 

 to its beautifiil hanging nest, which often appears as if it had been sewed to the leaves 

 of the palms and yuccas. The beautiM orange color of the Hooded Oriole is replaced 

 in this variety by a less striking saffron-yellow. As this bird is not only common in its 

 native haunts in the uncultivated regions of Arizona, but begins to take up its abode 



