64 



ORCHARD ORIOLE. 

 ORIOLUS MUTATUS. 

 [Plate IV.] 



Ve ale's Museum, No. IBQQ, —Bastard Baltimore, Catesby I, A9.—Le Baltimore Batard, 

 De Bufpon III, 233. PL enl. S06.—0riolus Spurius, Gmel. Syst. I, p. 389.— Lath. 

 Syn. II, p. 433, 20, p. 437, 24.— Bartram, 290. 



THERE are no circumstances, relating to birds, which tend 

 so much to render their history obscure and perplexing, as the 

 various changes of color which many of them undergo. These 

 changes are in some cases periodical, in others progressive; and 

 are frequently so extraordinary, that, unless the naturalist has re- 

 sided for years in the country where the birds inhabit, and has exa- 

 mined 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 appears 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 call- 

 " ed (Spurious Baltimore), because the colors of its plumage are 

 " not so lively as in the preceding (Baltimore O.). In fact when 

 " we compare these birds, and find an exact correspondence in 



