42 INSESSOBES. 



American Orioles in the United States. Bullock's 

 Oriole, whiuli enjoys a wide range upon the Pacific 

 coast, from California northward to the Columbia 

 river, seems to fill the same position as that occupied 

 to the eastward by the Baltimore Oriole, which it 

 very much resembles in appearance as well as in its 

 habits. 



The Orchard Oriole is a familiar occupant of our 

 orchards and gardens in summer, where it renders 

 signal service by ridding the fruit trees of hosts of 

 worms and noxious insects and their larvae. It also 

 suspends its neatly formed nest from the forks of 

 some outspreading branch. It is not built in the 

 pouch-like form we have before described, but looks 

 more like a suspended cup, of insufiicient capacity 

 to conceal the body of the bird while sitting. It is 

 a plainly colored bird ; in the male the breast and 

 whole lower parts, together with the rump, being of 

 a rich chestnut-brown, and the remainder of the plu- 

 mage black. The female is plain olive on the upper 

 parts, and a dingy yellow below. 



In point of nest-building we will now notice a 

 bird of very different character; this is the Meadow 

 Lark, a plain and humble species, seldom indulging 

 in any wandering desires, not being gifted with any 

 great powers of flight ; its body being heavy and its 

 wings short, and altogether unfitted for rapid motion. 

 When it first rises from the ground, it flutters like a 

 young bird until it rises fifteen or twenty feet in the 

 ^, when it pursues a bee-line course, with alternate 

 Hide as, and flutters until ready to alight, which is 



