distinguishable in the bird chorus; but as nest-builders they excel, and there is no nest that more closely resembles man's primitive efforts at basket-weaving. It is usually suspended between branches or twigs, and is woven of dried grasses of nearly equal size, so that the nest is very neat and even.
Old orchards are favourite haunts of this bird, for it is very shy and seldom builds hear dwellings. Its song season is brief, being over in July, and even immediately after the nesting, when the young birds mingle their immature plumage and attempted song, the identification of either song or bird is difficult for the novice.
Baltimore Oriole: Icterus galbula.
Golden Oriole, Hang-nest, Golden Robin.
Plate 38.
Length: 8 inches.
Male: Black head, throat, and upper half of back. Wings black, with white spots and edges; tail quills spotted with yellow. Everywhere else orange-flame. Bill and feet slatish black.
Female: Paler, the black washed with olive. Below dull orange.
Song: Somewhat shrill and interrogative, but withal martial. In the breeding-season they have an anxious call, — "Will you ? Will you really, really, truly?" Female's note a plaintive "I w-i-ll."
Season: 1st of May to the middle of September.
Breeds: Through range.
Nest: A pensile pocket, woven of milkweed, flax, fine string, or frayings of cotton, rope, etc.; suspended at the end of a swaying branch at considerable distance from the ground.
Eggs: 4-6, whitish ground, scrawled with black-brown.
Range: Eastern United States, west nearly to the Rocky Mountains.
There is a bit of history as well as tradition connected with the naming of this splendid bird. George Calvert, the first Baron Baltimore, who penned the charter of settlement in 1632 of the country which now comprises the states of Delaware and Maryland (a grant which fructified later for the benefit of his son), is the subject of the tradition which still lingers in Maryland, and has sufficient facts
172
