THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL 
Then from the honeysuckle gray 
The oriole with experienced quest 
Twitches the fibrous bark away, 
The cordage of his hammock nest, 
Cheering his labor with a note 
Rich as the orange of his throat. 
Lowell. 
F rom the outermost tip of an oak-tree 
branch on the sunny side of a hill, 
swung the pretty silken cradle of these 
orioles. The' unusually brilliant plumage 
of the father bird and his glorious song were 
the subject of much admiring comment long 
before he chose this nesting-site, and when 
he brought his little mate to that tree and 
inspected its facilities by hanging chickadee 
fashion from the tip of that very branch, I 
held my breath in ecstasy of hope. Now 
orioles do not like to build in an oak, for 
two reasons : it is the foraging ground of 
squirrels who gather the acorns ; and the 
branches, being less pliant, afford a better 
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