This bird, however, rejoices in several other cognomens, such as English Robin, Golden Robin, Hang-nest Bird, Fire-Finch, and Golden Oriole. He is both esthetic and utilitarian, being beautiful, musical, social and also useful in that he feeds upon insects most injurious to vegetation; especially the harmful small kinds passed over unnoticed by the birds of other species.
The Baltimore Oriole is fond of sweets. He has been seen to snip off the heads of white-headed or stingless bees and draw out the viscera through the ring-like opening, for the sake of the honey sack. How did he know it was there? How did he learn that he could get at it in this way? The poet naturalist, Thompson, well says of him:
“You whisk wild splendors through the trees,
And send keen fervors down the wind;
You singe the jackets of the bees,
And trail an opal mist behind.
“When flowery hints foresay the berry,
On spray of haw and tuft of briar,
Then wandering incendiary,
You set the maple swamps afire.”