104 
The Baltimore Oriole 
derfully woven, and is a cradle as well as a house. I should like to 
have been brought up in such a homestead.” 
In his book, Useful Birds and Their Protection, Edward H. 
Forbush says : 
“Professor Beal finds that 83 per cent, of the Oriole’s food consists of 
animal matter, caterpillars forming 34 per cent, of the whole. Evidently 
the Oriole is one of the first among the birds known to destroy hairy 
caterpillars, and, for this alone, it may be ranked as one of the chief 
friends of the orchardist and forester. The tussock, gipsy, brown-tail, 
tent, and forest caterpillars, the fall webworm, and even the spiny cater- 
s pillar of the mourning-cloak butterfly — all are greedily 
a ^^JJ ars eaten by the Baltimore Oriole ; and it does not usually 
swallow many, but merely kills them and eats a small 
portion of the inner parts. It thus destroys many more than would be 
needed to satisfy its appetite were they swallowed whole, while, at the 
same time, no recognizable portion of the caterpillar can be found in the 
bird’s stomach.” 
However much the Baltimore Oriole loves his native land, the cli- 
mate and the exigencies of travel make his stay in it brief ; for he does 
not appear until there is some protection of foliage, and he starts south- 
ward toward his winter home in Central and South America often before 
a single leaf has fallen. 
THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE 
How falls it, Oriole, thou hast come to fly 
In tropic splendor through our northern sky? 
At some glad moment was it Nature’s choice 
To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice? 
Or did an orange tulip, flaked with black, 
In some forgotten garden, ages back, — 
Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard, 
Desire unspeakably to be a bird? 
— Edgar Fawcett 
Classification and Distribution 
The Baltimore Oriole belongs to the Order Passeres, Suborder Oscines, and 
Family Icteridce. Its scientific name is Icterus galbula. Its range is eastern North 
America and northern South America, breeding from central Alberta, New Bruns- 
wick, and Nova Scotia, south to northern Texas, central Louisiana, and northern 
Georgia, and west to the base of the Rocky Mountains ; it winters from southern 
Mexico through Central America to Colombia. 
This and other Educational Leaflets are for sale, at 5 cents each, by the National Association of 
Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City. Lists given on request. 
