20 
BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 
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 bottom is composed of 
thick tufts of cow hair, sewed also with strong horse hair. 
This nest was hung on the extremity of the horizontal branch 
of an apple tree, fronting the southeast ; was visible a hundred 
yards off, though shaded from 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 directions. 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, the women in the 
country 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, frequently 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 entangled, as to be entirely irreclaimable. 
Before the introduction 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, particularly one of a brilliant glossy green, fragments of 
which I have almost always found in their stomach, and 
sometimes these only. 
