64 
ORCHARD ORIOLE. 
ORCHARD ORIOLE ORIOLUS MUTATUS Plate IV. 
Peale' s ' Museum, No. 1508. — Bastard Baltimore, Catesby, i. 49. — Le Baltimore 
Batard, De Buffon, iii. 233. PI. enl. 506. — Oriolus Spurius, Gmelin, Syst. i. 
p. 389 Lath. Syn. ii. p. 433, 20. p. 437, 24 Bartram, p. 290. 
ICTERUS SPURIUS. — Bonaparte. 
Icterus Spurius, Bonap. Synop, p. 51 The Orchard Oriole, Aud. i. 221, pi. xlii. 
There are no circumstances, relating to birds, which tend 
so much to render their history obscure and perplexing, as 
the various changes of colour which many of them undergo. 
These changes are in some cases periodical ; in others progres- 
sive ; and are frequently so extraordinary, that, unless the 
naturalist has resided for years in the country which the birds 
inhabit, and has examined them at almost every season, he is 
extremely liable to be mistaken and imposed on by their novel 
appearance. Numerous instances of this kind might be cited, 
from the pages of European writers, in which the same bird 
has been described two, three, and even four different times, 
by the same person, and each time as a different kind. The 
species we are now about to examine is a remarkable example 
of this ; and as it has never, to my knowledge, been either 
accurately figured or described, I have devoted one plate to 
the elucidation of its history. 
The Count de Buffon, in introducing what he supposed to 
be the male of this bird, but which appears evidently to have 
been the female of the Baltimore Oriole, makes the following 
observations, which I give in the words of his translator : — 
cc This bird is so called, (Spurious Baltimore,) because the 
colours of its plumage are not so lively as in the preceding, 
(Baltimore O.) In fact, when we compare these birds, and 
find an exact correspondence in every thing except the colours, 
and not even in the distribution of these, but only in the 
different tints they assume ; we cannot hesitate to infer, that 
the Spurious Baltimore is a variety of a more generous race, 
