64 ORCHARD ORIOLE. 



OECHAED OEIOLE. {Oriolus mutatus.) 



PLATE IV. 



Peale's Museum, No. 1508. — Bastard Baltimore, Catesby, i. 49.— Le Baltimore 

 Batard, Buffon, iii. 233. PI. enl. 506. — Oriolus spurius, Gmelin, Syst. i. 

 p. 389.— Lath. Syn. ii. p. 433, 20. p. 437, 24.— Bartram, p. 290. 



ICTERUS SPURIUS.— Bonapaete. 

 Icterus spurius, Bonap. Synop. p. 51. — The Orchard Oriole, Aud. i. 221, pi. xlii. 



There are no circumstances, relating to birds, which tend so 

 much to render their history obscure and perplexing, as the 

 various changes of colour which many of them undergo. 

 These changes are in some cases periodical ; in others pro- 

 gressive ; and are frequently so extraordinary, that, unless the 

 naturalist has resided for years in the country which the birds 

 inhabit, and has examined them at almost every season, he is 

 extremely liable to be mistaken and imposed on by their novel 

 appearance. Numerous instances of this kind might be cited 

 from the pages of European writers, in which the same bird 

 has been described two, three, and even four different times, 

 by the same person, and each time as a different kind. The 

 species we are now about to examine is a remarkable example 

 of this ; and as it has never, to my knowledge, been either 

 accurately figured or described, I have devoted one plate to 

 the elucidation of its history. 



The Count de Buffon, in introducing what he supposed to 

 be the male of this bird, but which appeal's evidently to have 

 been the female of the baltimore oriole, makes the following 

 observations, which I give in the words of his translator : — 

 "This bird is so called (spurious baltimore), because the 

 colours of its plumage are not so lively as in the preceding 

 {Baltimore 0.) In fact, when we compare these birds, and 

 find an exact correspondence in everything except the colours, 

 and not even in the distribution of these, but only in the dif- 

 ferent tints they assume, we cannot hesitate to infer that the 

 spurious baltimore is a variety of a more generous race, 



