348 



NESTS AND EOGS OF 



506. Orchard Oriole and Nest (After Audubon). 



masterpiece of ■workmanship, whicli, witli its bill, it ■weaves and suspends like a 

 hammock from the drooping bough of an elm or sycamore, in dense foliage. The 

 nest is pensile and nearly a cylindrical pouch, suspended from the extremity of a 

 branch. The distance from the ground varies from four to seventy feet. Any sub- 

 stance combining the proper length, thickness and strength is used in the construe-, 

 tion of its nest, consequently the materials depend to a great extent upon the locality 

 — ^long grasses, strips of bark, vegetable fibres, yarns, wrapping twine, horse and cow 

 hairs, rags, paper and other substances that are readily accessible. The nest repre- 

 sented in' our illlistratibn is takeni from a typical specimen which I took from the 

 branches of a sycamore in Franklin county, Ohio, May 23, 1884; other specimens in 

 my collection are not so elaborately made. The number of eggs laid ranges from 

 four to six. The ground-color is white, with a slight roseate tinge ■when fresh, fad- 

 ing into a bluish tint when blown, marked with blotches, lines, scrawls, and the 

 usual hieroglyphics common to eggs of this genus, irregularly distributed over the 

 surface, usually thickest about the larger end, forming a wreath. A set of five 



