CHERKIE: ORXITHOLOGY OF THE ORINOCO REGION. ZOJ 
same relative size and style, and the similarity of the materials employed 
would all seem to indicate that the orioles had found the locality a 
desirable one in which to rear a family, and had made preparations for 
their second brood. This nest was about 7.6 m. from the 
ground in a large tree standing in a rather thinly wooded savanna 
region. It contained three fresh eggs; they are elongated ovate in 
form and in color are white, beautifully marked with dark brown lines 
and spots over similar underlying pale mauve colored markings, 
especially about the larger end. They measure 23 x 15; 23.6 x 15.5 
and 22.5 X 15.2 mm. A set of eggs sent by the writer to the Tring 
Museum measure 25.1 x 15.6 and 24.5 x 17. i mmi A single egg taken 
with a nest May, 1905, measures 26 x 17.5 mm. and is nearly elongate 
ovate in form. Deserted nests of this species are often taken possession 
of for nesting purposes by other kinds of birds such as Sicalis flaveola 
and the striped Flycatcher, Legatus albicollis. 
This oriole display's considerable individual taste in the selection 
of material and in the details of construction of its nests. 
Icterus icterus (Linnaeus). 
Oriolus icterus L., Syst. Nat. ed. 12. I. 1766. p. 161. pro parte. 
Xanthornus icterus Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 32. 
Native name Triipial. Adult birds in life have the eye straw yellow, 
bare skin about eye cobalt blue; bill black, plumbeous at base of the 
mandible; feet plumbeous. 
Not uncommon, but wary and shy; distributed everywhere along 
the river at least as far as the mouth of the Meta. 
\'ery little has been written regarding the life history of this bird. 
It is. therefore, with much pleasure that I present the following notes. 
A nest and set of eggs was collected at Caicara May 4, 1907. The 
nest had as its foundation the half decayed mass of grasses that had 
once served, most probably, as a nest of Pitangus sulphiiratus rufipennis. 
Repairs had been made in the roof and a lining of soft grasses had been 
placed on the bottom of the nest cavity. From the outside there was 
nothing to indicate that it was more than an old nest long since aban- 
doned. The entrance, the original one, was on one side but completely 
hidden from below by surrounding foliage. In the same tree were 
three other deserted nests of Pitangus, each of which was in a much 
better state of preservation than the one that the trupial had selected. 
'Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 32. 
