BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC.: ORCHARD ORIOLE 653 
General Habits. —In the towns of southern California the Ari¬ 
zona Hooded Oriole merits its name of Palm-leaf Oriole, as it hangs 
its shallow basket nest, woven of palm-leaf fibers, from the underside 
of the outstretched, protecting fan palms. In the country it frequents 
both low chaparral and groves of mesquite and cottonwood, and 
Doctor Grinnell has found one sipping nectar, in company with hum¬ 
mingbirds, in a profusely blossoming ironwood. Its song is a charac¬ 
teristic Oriole whistle, besides which it has a typical Oriole chatter. 
As Mr. Henshaw says, it shuns arid districts, being found in the 
fringes of deciduous trees along the streams. From the cottonwoods 
it flies to low bushes on the canyon sides, gleaning insects from the 
branches or even occasionally from the ground. 
The Arizona Hooded supplies Frank F. Gander with a second 
interesting record of the “Swimming Ability of Fledgling Birds.” 
Jumping from their nest in a eucalyptus tree, two little Orioles he had 
discovered fell twenty feet into a pond, but “at once swam ashore, 
paddling with their feet, and their wings spread out on the water” 
(1927, pp. 574-75). 
Additional Literature.—Bailey, F. M., Auk, XXVII, 33-35, 1910. 
ORCHARD ORIOLE: Icterus spurius (Linnaeus). 
Description. — Male: Length (skins) 5.S-6.5 inches, wing 2.9~3.2. Female: 
Length (skins) 6-6.3 inches, wing 2.7-3. Adult male in spring and summer: Black 
except for dark chestnut belly , epaulettes, and hinder part of back , and brown and 
whitish edgings of wings; bill with basal half bluish. Adult male in fall and winter: 
Like summer male but feathers of epaulettes, back, and sometimes head and neck 
edged with buffy gray, olive, or chestnut obscuring the black; those of chestnut 
underparts sometimes edged with yellowish. Adult female in spring and summer: 
Upper parts yellowish olive-green, becoming more yellowish on upper tail coverts 
and tail; wings with two whitish bands and whitish edgings, under parts dull yellow. 
Young in juvenal plumage: Like adult female but wing markings tinged with buff. 
Male in second year: Similar to adult female but lores and throat black. 1 
Range. —Breeds from North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, southern Ontario, 
central New* York, and New T Hampshire south to northern Florida and the Gulf 
coast of southern Texas, Oaxaca, and Chiapas; winters from southern Mexico to 
northern Colombia; casual to New Brunswick, Colorado, etc. 
State Records. —The Orchard Oriole breeds west regularly to western Kansas 
and to the Davis Mountains of extreme western Texas. It thus comes nearly to 
New Mexico, but has not yet been found breeding in the State. A single bird 
taken by Doctor Henry many years ago, and labeled as taken from “Mimbres to 
Rio Grande,” was probably taken at Fort Thorn. 
Doctor Kennerly reports taking an Orchard Oriole when 75 miles west of 
Albuquerque with Lieutenant Whipple’s party on one of the surveys for a Pacific 
railroad. But as he was there about the middle of November, long after the last 
Orioles should have left, unless he saw a belated bird of the year, it is probable 
that there was a mistake in the record. 
[In the spring, on May 27, 1926, Ligon saw one 3 miles northwest of Ilagerman 
in the cottonwoods of the Felix River.]—W. W. Cooke. 
t Chapman, F. M. t Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America, Plate XXI, 364. 
