180 
ICTERUS BALTIMORUS. 
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 fiesh 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 parti- 
culars, 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 over 
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. 
The song of the Baltimore is a clear mellow whistle, 
repeated at short intervals as he gleans among the 
branches. There is in it a certain wild plaintiveness 
and naivete, extremely interesting. It is not uttered 
