204 
BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 
inches diameter, and seven inches in depth, rounded at bot- 
tom. The opening at top is narrowed, by a horizontal cover- 
ing, to two inches and a half in diameter. The materials are 
flax, hemp, tow, hair, and wool, woven into a complete cloth; 
the whole tightly sewed through and through with long horse 
hairs, several of which measure two feet in length. The bot- 
tom is composed of thick tufts of cow hair, sewed also with 
strong horse hair. This nest was hung on the extemity of the 
horizontal branch of an apple-tree, fronting the south-east; was 
visible one hundred yards off, though shaded by the sun; and 
was the work of a very beautiful and perfect bird. The eggs 
are five, white, slightly tinged with flesh colour, marked on 
the greater end with purple dots, and on the other parts with 
long hair-like lines, intersecting each other in a variety of di- 
rections. I am thus minute in these particulars, from a wish to 
point out the specific difference between the true and bastard 
Baltimore, which Dr. Latham and some others suspect to be 
only the same bird in different stages of colour. 
So solicitous is the Baltimore to procure proper materials for 
his nest, that, in the season of building, tbe women in the coun- 
try are under the necessity of narrowly watching their thread 
that may chance to be out bleaching, and the farmer to secure 
his young grafts; as the Baltimore finding the former, and the 
strings which tie the latter, so well adapted for his purpose, fre- 
quently carries off both; or should the one be too heavy, and 
the other too firmly tied, he will tug at them a considerable 
time before he gives up the attempt. Skeins of silk, and hanks 
of thread, have been often found, after the leaves were fallen, 
hanging round the Baltimore’s nest; but so woven up, and en- 
tangled, as to be entirely irreclaimable. Before the introduc- 
tion of Europeans, no such material could have been obtained 
here; but with the sagacity of a good architect, he has improved 
this circumstance to his advantage; and the strongest and best 
materials are uniformly found in those parts by which the 
whole is supported. 
Their principal food consists of caterpillars, beetles and bugs, 
