tent to eat meat out of the dishes;-watches the hunters while baiting their traps for martens, and devours the bait as soon as their backs are turned; that they breed early in spring, building their nests on pine trees, forming them of sticks and grass, and lay blue eggs; that they have two, rarely three young at a time, which are at first quite black, and continue so for some time; that they fly in pairs; lay up hoards of berries in hollow trees; are seldom seen in January, unless near houses; are a kind of Mock-bird; and when caught pine away, though their appetite never fails them; notwithstanding all which ingenuity and good qualities, they are, as we are informed, detested by the natives.*

The only individuals of this species that I ever met with in the United States were on the shores of the Mohawk, a short way above the Little Falls. It was about the last of November, and the ground deeply covered with snow. There were three or four in company, or within a small distance of each other, flitting leisurely along the road side, keeping up a kind of low chattering with one another, and seemed nowise apprehensive at my approach. I soon secured the whole; from the best of which the drawing in the plate was carefully made. On dissection I found their stomachs occupied by a few spiders and the aurelia of some insects. I could perceive no difference between the plumage of the male and female.

The Canada Jay is eleven inches long, and fifteen in extent; back, wings, and tail, a dull leaden gray, the latter long, cuneiform, and tipt with dirty white; interior vanes of the wings brown, and also partly tipt with white; plumage of the head loose and prominent; the forehead and feathers covering the nostril, as well as the whole lower parts, a dirty brownish white, which also passes round the bottom of the neck like a collar; part of the crown and hind-head black; bill and legs also black; eye dark hazel. The whole plumage on the back is long, loose, unwebbed, and in great abundance, as if to protect it from the rigours of the regions it inhabits.

*HEARNE'S Journey, p. 405.

A gentleman of observation, who resided for many years near the North river, not far from Hudson, in the state of New York, informs me, that he has particularly observed this bird to arrive there at the commencement of cold weather-he has often remarked its solitary habits; it seemed to seek the most unfrequented shaded retreats, keeping almost constantly on the ground, yet would sometimes, towards evening, mount to the top of a small tree, and repeat its notes (which a little resemble those of the Baltimore) for a quarter of an hour together; and this it generally did immediately before snow, or falling weather.

GENUS 15. ORIOLUS.*

SPECIES 1. ORIOLUS BALTIMORUSA

BALTIMORE ORIOLE.

[Plate. 1. -Fig. 3. Male. ]

LINN. Syst. 1, p. 162, 10.—Icterus minor, BRISS. II, p. 109, pl. 12, fig. 1.--Le Baltimore, BUFF. 11, p. 231. Pl. Enl. 506, fig. 1.— Baltimore Bird, CATESB. Car. 1, 48.- Arct. Zool. 11, p, 142. -LATH. Syn. 11, p. 432, 19. BARTRAM, p. 290.-PEALE'S MUseum, No. 1506.

THIS is a bird of passage, arriving in Pennsylvania, from the south, about the beginning of May, and departing towards the latter end of August, or beginning of September. From the singularity of its colours, the construction of its nest, and its preferring the apple-trees, weeping-willows, walnut and tuliptrees, adjoining the farm-house, to build on, it is generally known, and, as usual, honoured with a variety of names, such as Hang-nest, Hanging-bird, Golden Robin, Fire-bird (from the bright orange seen through the green leaves, resembling a flash of fire), &c. but more generally the Baltimore-bird, so named, as Catesby informs us, from its colours, which are black and orange, being those of the arms or livery of lord Baltimore, formerly proprietary of Maryland.

The Baltimore Oriole is seven inches in length; bill almost straight, strong, tapering to a sharp point, black, and sometimes

This genus has been variously divided by modern ornithologists. Temminck has separated it into four sections, viz. Cassicus, Quiscala, Icterus, and Emberizoides. The two species described by Wilson, belong to the third section, Icterus.

+ Coracias Galbula, LINN. Syst. ed. 10, tom. 1, 108.—Oriolus Baltimore, LATH. Ind. Orn. 180.

VOL. 1.3 E

lead coloured above, the lower mandible light blue towards the base. Head, throat, upper part of the back and wings, black; lower part of the back, rump, and whole under parts, a bright orange, deepening into vermilion on the breast; the black on the shoulders is also divided by a band of orange; exterior edges of the greater wing-coverts, as well as the edges of the secondaries, and part of those of the primaries, white; the tail feathers, under the coverts, orange; the two middle ones thence to the tips are black, the next five, on each side, black near the coverts, and orange toward 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 back, 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. Pennant has committed the same mistake; 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 latter are subject to.

This obscurity I have endeavoured to clear up in the present volume of this work, Pl. iv, by exhibiting the male and female of the Oriolus spurius in their different changes of dress, as well as in their perfect plumage; and by introducing representations of the eggs of both, have, I hope, put the identity of these two species beyond all further dispute or ambiguity.

Almost the whole genus of Orioles belong to America, and with a few exceptions build pensile nests. Few of them, however, equal the Baltimore in the construction of these receptacles for their young, and in giving them, in such a superior degree, convenience, warmth and security. For these purposes he generally fixes on the high bending extremities of the branches, fastening strong strings of hemp or flax round two forked twigs, corresponding to the intended width of the nest; with the same materials, mixed with quantities of loose tow, he interweaves or fabricates a strong firm kind of cloth, not unlike the substance of a hat in its raw state, forming it into a pouch of six or seven inches in depth, lining it substantially with various soft substances, well interwoven with the outward netting, and lastly, finishes with a layer of horse hair; the whole being shaded from the sun and rain by a natural pent-house, or canopy of leaves. As to a hole being left in the side for the young to be fed, and void their excrements through, as Pennant and others relate, it is certainly an error: I have never met with any thing of the kind in the nest of the Baltimore.

Though birds of the same species have, generally speaking, a common form of building, yet, contrary to the usually received opinion, they do not build exactly in the same manner. As much difference will be found in the style, neatness, and finishing of the nests of the Baltimores, as in their voices. Some appear far superior workmen to others; and probably age may improve them in this as it does in their colours. I have a number of their nests now before me, all completed, and with eggs. One of these, the neatest, is in the form of a cylinder, of five