BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 309 
Habitat, United States East of the oer Mountains; rare in Northern New England 
and only casually in the Canadas. 
Common summer resident. The Orchard Oriole arrives usually a few 
days later than the following species, and is less generally distributed 
and less common. Its favorite resorts are the low banks of sparsely 
wooded streams and willow thickets, and though frequently found in 
orchards and gardens, does not, in this vicinity, exhibit the preference 
which its common name implies. 
In this vicinity the Orchard Oriole builds a nest, which for compact- 
ness, neatness, care in the selection of materials, and adaptation to con- 
cealment snd the safety of the young, is unexcelled even by the noted 
Baltimore Hangnest. The nest is composed entirely of long green blades 
of strong marsh grass, woven compactly together to form a deep purse 
or cup, ouly slightly contracted at the rim and nearly twice as deep as 
wide, and with or without a scant lining of vegetable down. It is 
attached by the rim, and sometimes by the sides, to slender. twigs of wil- 
low trees, where its color, which becomes by bleaching a uniform light 
straw, renders it very difficult to discover. The eggs are usually four 
in number, pale bluish, marked with Cos and zig-zig lines of light 
and dark brown. 
IcrERUS BALTIMORE (L.) Daudin. 
i] 
Baltimore Oriole. 
‘Icterus baltimore, KIRTLAND, Ohio Geolog. Surv., 1838, 162.—Reap, Fam. Visitor, 
iii, 1853, 311; Proc. Phila. Acad. Nat. Sci., vi, 1853, 395; WHEATON, Ohio Agri. 
Rep. for 1860, 366; Reprint, 1861, 8; Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 
567; Reprint, 1875, 7.—LANGDoN, Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 10; Revised List, Journ. 
Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 176 ; Reprint, 10.—JoNES and SHULTZ, Illustrations of 
Nesis and Eggs of Ohio Birds, Part 1, 1879, Plate 1. 
- Oriolus baltimore, LINNEZUS, Syst. Nat., i, 1766, 162. 
Icterus baltimore, DAUDIN, Trans, Orn., ii, 348. 
Male with the head and neck all round, and the back, black ; rump, upper tail coverts, 
lesser wing coveris, most of the tail feathers, and ail the under parts from the throat, 
fiery orange, but of varying intensity according to age and season. Middle tail feathers 
black, the middle and greater coverts and inner quills, more or less edged and tipped 
with white, but the white on the coverts not forming a continous patch; bil! and feet 
blue black. Length 74-8 ; tail 3. . Female smaller, and much paler, the black obscured 
by olive, sometimes entirely wanting. The young entirely without the black on throat 
and head, othewise colored nearly jike the female. 
Habitat, United States, west to the Rocky Mountains. North regularly to the British 
Provinces. Breeds chiefly toward the northern portions of its range, but generally dis- 
persed in summer over the United States. 
Abundant summer resident from the latter part of April to September. 
Breeds. Found everywhere, and everywhere well-known by the bril- 
