Conspicuously Yellow and Orange: 
Among the best architects in the world is his plain but ener- 
getic mate. Gracefully swung from a high branch of some tall 
tree, the nest is woven with exquisite skill into a long, flexible 
pouch that rain cannot penetrate, nor wind shake from its horse- 
hair moorings. Bits of string, threads of silk, and sometimes 
yarn of the gayest colors, if laid about the shrubbery in the garden, 
will be quickly interwoven with the shreds of bark and milk- 
weed stalks that the bird has found afield. The shape of the 
nest often differs, because in unsettled regions, where hawks 
abound, it is necessary to make it deeper than seven inches (the 
customary depth when it is built near the homes of men), and to 
partly close it at the top to conceal the sitting bird. From four 
to six whitish eggs, scrawled over with black-brown, are hatched 
by the mother oriole, and most jealously guarded by her now 
truly domesticated’ mate. 
The number of grubs, worms, flies, caterpillars, and even 
cocoons, that go to satisfy the hunger of a family of orioles in a 
day, might indicate, if it could be computed, the great value these 
birds are about our homes, aside from the good cheer they bring. 
There is a popular tradition about the naming of this gorgeous 
bird: When George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, worn out 
and discouraged by various hardships in his Newfoundland colony, 
decided to visit Virginia in 1628, he wrote that nothing in the 
Chesapeake country so impressed him as the myriads of birds 
in its woods. But the song and color of the oriole particularly 
cheered and delighted him, and orange and black became the 
heraldic colors of the first lords proprietors of Maryland. 
Hush! ’tis he! 
My Oriole, my glance of summer fire, 
Is come at last; and ever on the watch, 
Twitches the pack-thread | had lightly wound 
About the bough to help his housekeeping. 
Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his Iuck, 
Yet fearing me who laid it in his way. 
Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, 
Divines the Providence that hides and helps. 
Heave, ho! Heave, bo! he whistles as the twine 
Slackens its hold; once more, now! and a flash 
Lightens across the sunlight to the elm 
Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt. 
—James Russell Lowell. 
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