in gardens even in towns and cities of southern California, I shall deal more fully with 

 its life-history, especially with its nesting habits. 



The collector, Mr. W. E. D. Scott, found this bird common in the same canon, where 

 he found. Scott's Oriole such a conspicuous bird. 



"The individual taste of birds," says Mr. Scott, "in the matter of their nests is 

 so well exemplified by the great differentiation in the nests of the Hooded Oriole, which 

 is a very common breeding bird in the canon described on page 270,. ff., that I propose 

 to give a detailed description of a few nests taken here during the past summer, and 

 incidentally to call attention to other nests of the same species taken in regions close 

 at hand. 



"The birds arrive here about the middle of April, and are to be found until the 

 last of September, and a few even well into October. Such, at least, was my experience 

 during' the season of 1884. They are not great songsters, but are very conspicuous, 

 both by their plumage and by their pecuKar call or rattle, which is very similar to that 

 of the Baltimore Oriole, only it is more prolonged. Two broods are raised, and not 

 infrequently three, during their stay here, and a new home is built for each brood. The 

 old birds are great workers when building their nests, and the rapidity with which so 

 elaborate a structure is completed is astonishing. Three or four days at most generally 

 sufiice to complete the structure. . . . 



"The nests which I found were all taken from three kinds of trees, cottonwood, 

 sycamore, and a kind of ash; and, considering that the location of all were not a mile 

 apart, it would seem that taste or fancy had much to do with producing in the same 

 locality, where the materials used by all of the builders are abundant and easily obtained, 

 structures varying so widely in general appearance, in the materials of which they are 

 built, and in their method of building, as well as in mode of attachment to the tree. 



"Some of the nests, it will be seen, are as truly pensile as those of the Baltimore 

 Oriole; others are more like those of the Orchard Oriole; while one at least rests on a 

 stout twig and is hardly to be regarded as a hanging nest at all. 



"The following data are taken from the nests before me and from notes made 

 when the nests were collected. 



"No. 1. Nest of May 28. In a cottonwood, forty-five feet from the ground. Con- 

 tained a full set of three eggs, which were fresh and of the usual coloration. The nest 

 is a rather bulky structure, and is built externally of coarse green grasses, rather loosely 

 woven, but so knitted and tied together as to form a very strong wall. The general 

 appearance of the surface is smooth, though the contour of the whole is unsymmetrical. 

 There is a distinct lining, which is of fine dried grasses very compactly laid together, 

 but not woven, in parallel circles, one above the other, reaching to the rim of the nest. 

 Just in the bottom there is one large feather of a Hawk and a little down. 



"The nest is attached to three main twigs at the extremity of a branch, and one 

 of these twigs is again divided into three smaller twigs. One of the main twigs has 

 many leaves, and is fastened to the wall of the nest for five inches, and some of the 

 leaves are woven into the structure. A second twig is attached at a point about an 

 inch and a half from the first to the wall of the nest for four inches, and has three 

 leaves, all of which are fastened to the nest. The twig spoken of as being divided into 



