178 
ICTERUS BALTIMORUS. 
orange towards the extremities, so disposed, that when 
the tail is expanded, and the coverts removed, the black 
appears in the form of a pyramid, supported on an arch 
of orange. Tail slightly forked, the exterior feather 
on each side, a quarter of an inch shorter than the 
others; legs and feet, light blue, or lead colour; iris of 
the eye, hazel. 
The female has the head, throat, upper part of the 
neck and hack, of a dull black, each feather being- 
skirted with olive yellow ; lower part of the back, 
rump, upper tail-coverts, and whole lower parts, orange 
yellow, but much duller than that of the male ; the 
whole wing feathers are of a deep dirty brown, except 
the quills, which are exteriorly edged, and the greater 
wing-coverts, and next superior row, which are broadly 
tipt with a dull yellowish white ; tail, olive yellow ; 
in some specimens, the two middle feathers have been 
found partly black, in others wholly so ; the black on 
the throat does not descend so far as in the male, is of 
a lighter tinge, and more irregular ; bill, legs, and claws,, 
light blue. 
Buffon and Latham, have both described the male of 
the bastard Baltimore, ( oriolus spurius ,) as the female 
Baltimore. Mr Pennant has committed the same mis- 
take ; and all the ornithologists of Europe, with whose 
works I am acquainted, who have undertaken to figure 
and describe these birds, have mistaken the proper 
males and females, and confounded the two species 
together in a very confused and extraordinary manner,, 
for which, indeed, we ought to pardon them, on account 
of their distance from the native residence of these 
birds, and the strange alterations of colour which the 
letter are subject to. 
This obscurity I have endeavoured to clear up in the 
plate containing the male and female of the oriolus 
spurius in their different changes of dress, as well as 
in their perfect plumage ; and by introducing repre-^ 
sentations of the eggs of both, have, I hope, put the 
identity of these two species beyond all future dispute 
or ambiguity. 
