The Orchard Oriole is an active, sprightly, and very lively species, and possesses a very peculiar and somewhat remarkable song. Its notes are very rapidly enunciated, and are both hurried and energetic. Some writers speak of the song as confused, but this attribute is not in the utterance of the song, the musician manifesting anything but confusion in the rapid and distinct enunciation of his gushing notes. These may be too quick in their utterance for the listener to follow, but they are wonderful both for their rapidity and their harmony. His performance consists of shrill and lively notes, uttered with an apparent air of great agitation, and they are quite as distinct and agreeable, though neither so full nor so rich, as are those of the more celebrated Golden Robin.
In the Central States, from New York to North Carolina, these birds are
not only very abundant, but very generally diffused. Hardly an orchard or a garden of any size can be found without them. They seem to prefer apple-trees for their abode, and for the construction of their nests. These structures, though essentially different, are, in their style of architecture, quite as curiously wrought and ingenious as those of the Baltimore. They are suspended from small twigs, often at the very extremity of the branches. In Pennsylvania they are usually formed externally of a peculiar kind of long, tough, and flexible grass. This material is woven through and through in a very wonderful manner, and with as much neatness and intricacy as if actually sewed with a needle. They are hemispherical in shape, open at the top, and generally about four inches in breadth and three deep. The cavity has a depth and a width of about two inches.
Wilson states that, having had the curiosity to detach one of these fibres of dried grass from the nest, he found it thirteen inches in length, and that, in that distance, it had been hooked through and returned no less than thirty-four times! In this manner it was passed entirely around the nest. The nests are occasionally lined with wool or the down of seeds. The external portions are strongly fastened to several twigs, so that they may be blown about by the wind without being upset.
Wilson also remarks that he observed that when these nests are built in the long pendent branches of the weeping-willow, where they are liable to much greater motion, though formed of the same materials, they are always made much deeper and of slighter texture. He regards this as a manifestation of a remarkable intelligence, almost equivalent to reason. The willow, owing to the greater density of its foliage, affords better shelter, and is preferred on that account, and owing to the great sweep, in the wind, of the branches, the eggs would be liable to be rolled out if the nest were of the usual depth; hence this adaptation to such positions.
The food of the Orchard Oriole is almost exclusively insects. Of these it consumes a large number, and with them it also feeds its young. Most of these are of the kinds most obnoxious to the husbandman, preying upon the foliage, destroying the fruit, and otherwise injuring the trees, and their destroyers render an incalculable amount of benefit to the gardens they favor with their presence. At the same time they are entirely innocent of injury to crops of any description, and I cannot find that any accusations or expressions of suspicion have been raised against them. They seem to be, therefore, general favorites, and, wherever protected, evince their appreciation of this good-will by their familiarity and numbers.
The female sits upon her eggs fourteen days, and the young remain in the nest about ten days longer. They are supposed to have occasionally two broods in a season, as nests with eggs are found the last of July. They are said to arrive in Pennsylvania about the first of May, and to leave before the middle of September.
According to Wilson they are easily raised from the nest, and become very
tame and familiar. One that he kept through the winter, when two months old whistled with great clearness and vivacity.
All the nests of this species that I have seen from Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, or Texas, have no lining, but are wholly made of one material, a flexible kind of reed or grass.