ORCHARD ORIOLE. 283 



tranquility, is, indeed, vocal with the music of numerous birds, and a more beautiful 

 spring day can scarcely be imagined. 



"May 9. The red clover is in full bloom. The Orchard Orioles are very abundant. 

 The females have arrived this morning or during the night, arid the very ecstatic and 

 vocal males are wooing them in their sweetest songs. All are very fearless coming into 

 close proximity of the house. The Bluebirds breeding for the second time have to keep 

 up a constant fight against the extremely numerous and half-domesticated Blue Jays. 

 In the early morning these nest plunderers and murderers approach the nesting-box in 

 a very quiet and sneaking way, usually in numbers from four to five, and the lovely 

 Bluebirds scarcely succeed in defending their home. 



"May 11. The Orchard Orioles have settled now, each female having selected her 

 mate. The Bluebirds in the nesting-box are now comparatively safe, and their enemies, 

 the Blue Jays, dare scarcely show^ themselves. The guardian, protector, and ally of the 

 small birds is the ever w^atchful and courageous Kingbird, w^ho drives away all the 

 robbers, from the size of a Blue Jay to that of an Eagle. 



"May 21. Six pairs of Orchard Orioles are nesting neat my house. Their song 

 can be heard almost incessantly in the grand concert of Nature. With an almost 

 thousand- voiced song of jubilee the plumed choir greets the rising sun. Cardinals, Blue- 

 birds, Bewick's Wrens, Kingbirds, Wood Pewees, Great-crested Flycatchers, Carolina 

 Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Flickers, Red-headed Woodpeckers, Robins, Catbirds, 

 Thrashers, Wood Thrushes, Indigo Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks, Yellow-billed Cuckoos, 

 Field Sparrows, Yellow Warblers, Red-eyed Vireos, Bell's and White-eyed Yireos, Lark 

 Sparrows, Martins, Barn Swallows, Orchard Orioles, and even Blue Jays sing and call 

 as loud as they can. How rich and varied is bird-life here yet! But it will not take 

 long before man has destroyed this beautiful idyll. With Argiis eyes I have to watch 

 the nest of the Mockingbird built in a prairie rose clambering over a fence on the country 

 road. These inimitable songsters have already become very scarce, as every nest obtain- 

 able is robbed of its young. 



"To-day I found the first Oriole nest. It is built in a young mulberry about six 

 feet above the ground. It is a pensile structure, and so well hidden among the foliage, 

 that only a trained eye can detect it. Like all the nests of this bird, it is built of long 

 slender grasses, which are cut with the bill and used green and fresh. The Oriole's 

 assiduity in w^eaving the long slender grasses into such a beautiful basket-like structure 

 is really astonishing. The color of the grasses, even when dry, shows a greenish hue, 

 preventing the nest among the branches and leaves from being seen. Dry grasses 

 and other material are nevet used in the external construction, but the inside is usually 

 lined with fine plant wool and feathers. Like almost all the nests which I have meas- 

 ured, this is three inches in diameter and three inches long. The birds usually work 

 from three to four days to complete the structure. 



"With one exception all the nests found by me in Texas were similar. All were 

 built in horizontal or half upright branches, and while some were hanging nests, most 

 of them were half pensile. All were lined with cotton or feathers. May 8, 3881, I dis- 

 covered a very peculiar nest, not quite finished, near Spring Creek, Texas, only a few 

 yards from a dwelling. For several days I had observed a pair of these birds carrying 



