The sociability of this species is one of its most marked characteristics. Audubon says that he has known no less than nine nests in the same enclosure, and all the birds living together in great harmony.
A nest of this bird, taken in Berlin, Conn., by Mr. Brandigee, has a diameter and a height of four inches. Its cavity is three inches in depth, and varies from three to three and a half in diameter, being widest at the centre, or half-way between the top and the base. It is entirely homogeneous, having been elaborately and skilfully woven of long green blades of grass. The inside is lined with animal wool, bits of yarn, and intermingled with a wooly substance of entirely vegetable origin. It was built from the extremity of the branch of an apple-tree.
An egg of this species, from Washington, measures .85 of an inch in length by .62 in breadth. The ground is a pale bluish-white, blotched with a pale purple, and dashed, at the larger end, with a few deep markings of dark purplish-brown. An egg from New Mexico is similar, but measures .79 of an inch by .54. Both are oblong oval, and pointed at one end.
Icterus cucullatus, Swainson.
HOODED ORIOLE.
Icterus cucullatus, Swainson, Philos. Mag. I, 1827, 436.—Lawrence, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. V, May, 1851, 116 (first introduced into fauna of United States).—Cassin, Ill. I, II, 1853, 42, pl. viii.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. I, 1870, 275.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 546. Pendulinus cucullatus, Bon. Consp. 1850, 433.—Cass. Pr. 1867, 60.
Sp. Char. Both mandibles much curved. Tail much graduated. Wings, a rather narrow band across the back, tail, and a patch starting as a narrow frontal band, involving the eyes, anterior half of cheek, chin, and throat, and ending as a rounded patch on the upper part of breast, black. Rest of body orange-yellow. Two bands on the wing and the edges of the quills white. Female without the black patch of the throat; the upper parts generally yellowish-green, brown on the back, beneath yellowish. Length, 7.50; wing, 3.25.
Hab. Valley of Lower Rio Grande, southward; Tucson, Arizona (Dr. Palmer); Lower California, Cordova (Scl. 1856, 300); Guatemala? (Scl. Ibis I, 20); Cuba? (Lawr. Ann. VII, 1860, 267); San Bernardino, California (Cooper, P. Cal., etc. 1861, 122); Vera Cruz hot region (Sum. M. B. S. I, 553); Mazatlan.
The orange varies greatly in tint and intensity with the individual; sometimes it is deep orange-red; often clear dull yellow, but more frequently of an oily orange.
This species is closely allied to the I. aurocapillus of South America, but