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FEMALE BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 
FEMALE BALTIMORE ORIOLE ORIOLUS 
BALTIMORUS Plate LIII. Fig. 4. 
Amer. Orn. vol. i. p. 23. 
ICTERUS BAL TIMORE Daudin. 
The history of this beautiful species has been particularly 
detailed in the first volume of the present work ; * to this repre- 
sentation of the female, drawn of half the size of nature, a few 
particulars may be added. The males generally arrive several 
days before the females, saunter about their wonted places of 
residence, and seem lonely, and less sprightly, than after the 
arrival of their mates. In the spring and summer of 1811, a 
Baltimore took up its abode in Mr Bartram’s garden, whose 
notes were so singular as particularly to attract my attention ; 
they were as well known to me as the voice of my most 
intimate friend. On the 30th of April, 1812, I was again 
surprised and pleased at hearing this same Baltimore in the 
garden, whistling his identical old chant ; and I observed, that 
he particularly frequented that quarter of the garden where 
the tree stood, on the pendent branches of which he had 
formed his nest the preceding year. This nest had been 
taken possession of by the House Wren, a few days after the 
Baltimore’s brood had abandoned it ; and, curious to know 
how the little intruder had furnished it within, I had taken it 
down early in the fall, after the Wren herself had also raised a 
brood of six young in it, and which was her second that season. 
I found it stript of its original lining, floored with sticks, or 
small twigs, above which were laid feathers ; so that the usual 
complete nest of the Wren occupied the interior of that of the 
Baltimore. 
The chief difference between the male and female Baltimore 
Oriole, is the superior brightness of the orange colour of the 
former to that of the latter. The black on the head, upper 
part of the back and throat of the female, is intermixed with 
See Vol. I. p. 16. 
