CHAPTER VI

THE ORIOLES

A rosy flush creeps up the sky, The birds begin their symphony. I hear the clear, triumphant voice Of the robin, bidding the world rejoice. The vireos catch the theme of the song. And the Baltimore oriole bears it along, While from sparrow, and thrush, and wood-pewee, And deep in the pine-trees the chickadee. There's an undercurrent of harmony.

Harriet E. Paine.

It's a merry song, that of the oriole. It belongs to the family, and once heard will be always recognized. Sometimes it is a happy laugh; sometimes a chatter, especially at nesting-time, when a pair of birds are selecting a place for the hammock. Always, wherever heard, the song of an oriole suggests sunshine and a letting-go of winter and sad times.

The name itself is characteristic of the bird, for it signifies yellow glory. And a yellow glory the oriole surely is, whether it be found in Europe or America, and whether it be called hang-bird, or yellow robin, or golden robin, or fiery hang-bird. The term "hang-bird" suggests the fate of a convict, but the oriole is no convict. His transgressions against any law are few and far between. The name simply denotes the conditions of its start in life. The "hanging" of an oriole occurs before it is out of the shell, at the very beginning of its career. The skill of the orioles in the art of weaving nests is unsurpassed by any other bird. Always it is nest-_weaving_; not nest-building. Not a stick or piece of bark do they use, nor a bit of mud or paste.

The beak of the orioles differs so widely from that of the grosbeaks that one has but to compare them to be interested. One might almost imagine the bill of a grosbeak to be a drinking-cup, or a basket with an adjustable lid or cover shutting slightly over; while that of the orioles is sharp and pointed, sometimes deflected, longer than the head of the bird, parting, it is true, but the upper and lower mandibles meeting so exactly together at the tip that they form a veritable needle or thorn. And a needle it is, on the point of which hangs a tale--the tale that has given to this lovely being the nom de plume of "hang-bird."

True, the orchard oriole fastens its nest in the forks, giving it a more fixed condition than is the case with the strictly pensile nests, but it, too, is woven with artistic designs, the threads interlacing in beautiful patterns. No more could a grosbeak weave an oriole's nest, with its big, clumsy, thick bill, than could an oriole crack pine cones to pieces with its needle beak. Each to its own tools when it comes to individual tricks. And there are the feet of the birds, fitted only for perching, not for walking! The nearest we ever came to catching an oriole on the ground was when we compelled a July grasshopper to sit in a bird-cage under a tree. The oriole went in at the door and the grasshopper went out of the door. We tried it again, and each time the bird and the hopper went out together, the oriole assisting its friend, for whom it has a special fondness. The fondness is not returned on the part of the hopper.

We were sorry for the grasshopper, and wishing to continue our experiments, secured the dry skin of an insect, which we tied to the perch of the cage. The oriole entered warily, took a bite, discovered the trick, and never came back.

Perhaps the Baltimore oriole is best known, not being confined to the city whose name it bears. It came by its name very much as many other birds came by their names and will continue to come by them. About 1628 Lord Baltimore, on an important visit to America, heard a chatter in the top of a maple, and looking up beheld the colors of his own livery, black and yellow. The colors were animated and flitted from place to place, at last seeming to laugh at the Englishman who had come so far from home to find his coat of arms out of reach. Baltimore recognized the bird as an aristocrat, and bestowed upon it his own name on the spot. And a lord the oriole is to this day, black and orange in color, varying in tint with age and season of the year. New clothes, whether on birds or people, fade with wear and sunshine, and lose the luster of newness.

Everybody knows the oriole: you can't make a mistake. That is, you know the male; you may not be so certain of the female and young, for these are always duller of color, more olive, and without the bright black of the male. Moreover, the young male orioles dress very much like their sisters until they are a year or two old, when they dress like a lord.

A neighbor of ours was sure she had discovered a new species hanging their nest under the awning of a window. Both birds were dull yellow, exactly similar in size and color. There was no mistaking the oriole's nest, however; and when we went to see we found the male to be an immature only, mating, as is their custom, the second year, before his best clothes arrived.

The Baltimore oriole attaches its nest or hammock to twigs pretty well up out of reach, and weaves the same of grasses and string, or horsehairs, or all combined. Some of the strings and hairs are very long, and are passed back and forth in open-work fabric, crazy-quilt fashion, and really very beautiful. The cradles swing with every passing breeze, suggesting the origin of the Indian lullaby song, "Rock-a-Bye Baby, in the Treetop." The eggs are four or five in number, bluish white, with many and various markings in brown. These are laid on a soft bed of wool or other suitable material. No wind can blow the young from the nest, though sorry accidents do sometimes happen to them. We have found them caught by the toes in the meshes of the nest, helplessly suspended on the outside, thus earning the name of "hang-bird" in a particular case. Not so very different from the Baltimore is the Bullock oriole, which was also named for an English gentleman who discovered the gay fellow up in a tree, laughing at him. There is less black on the head and neck of the Bullock than on the Baltimore, but the two relatives are alike in habits and manners.

The hooded oriole differs from both the others in the fact that he wears a hood or cowl of yellow, falling over the face like a mask. Perhaps the bill is more slender and decurved than in the Bullock.

The orchard oriole differs from the others in lacking the bright orange or yellow with the black of his dress. His bright chestnut breast, however, with the pointed bill and familiar manners, distinguish him as a member of the family. The nest is more compact than that of the others, woven sometimes of green grasses, which mature into sweet-smelling hay, retaining the green tint, which helps to hide its exact location in the foliage where it is placed.

To know one member of the oriole family is to know them all in a sense, and to know them is to love them.

Here in southern California we are best acquainted with the Arizona hooded, which comes to us from Mexico as early as March or April and remains until autumn. We have also the Bullock, and have watched both at nesting-time. None of the orioles is gregarious. They come in single file, never in flocks, and go the same way, often a solitary bachelor or maid lingering behind. When they come in spring it is always the male first, two or three days ahead of his mate. And only one male appears first on the grounds, who makes known his presence exultantly, as if declaring, "I've come, see me!" The oranges are ripe about this time, and the coat of the gay bird is quite in keeping with the prevailing color. One associates any of the orioles, save the orchard, with oranges and buttercups and dandelions and summer goldenrod.

These birds love the habitation of man, and where encouraged and tempted by fruits, remain about our homes by choice, returning each year to the old homestead. We have had orioles return to our home four consecutive seasons, weaving the new nests on to last year's, like a lean-to, sewing the two together with threads. Three pairs of these double-apartment nests are swinging from a single gum-tree twenty-five feet above the driveway.

Often a pair of orioles will suspend their hammocks under the cloth awnings of windows, if provision is made for them. A strong string or little rope, put in and out of the cloth, close up under the corner, will tempt them. We have not known an oriole to pierce firm, untransparent texture of any sort, with her needle beak. On this account we tempt her with the rope.

If corn leaves were high enough, the orioles would doubtless take them for nesting-places in their season. Not so very different from corn is our banana leaf, only a good deal broader and higher. It closes in the middle of the day like a corn leaf, opening again at night or with the sunset.

When the orioles first come to us in the spring they examine all the banana leaves. They soon make up their minds that these are either too young and tender or too old and tattered for a nesting site, and resort to the trees. Any tree will answer, but a favorite is the blue-gum, whose extreme height offers inducements. Though why the birds should take height into consideration we do not know, for later, when the leaves have matured, they select a low banana stock with its broad leaf, so low the hand can reach it. It may be they learn confidence as the season advances.

We have seen no nests with us made of other material than the light yellow fiber which the birds strip from the edge of the palm-leaves, the identical leaf of which the big broad fans are made. When the leaf is green it drips small threads from the edges of its midribs, which you see in the fan as thick grooves. These threads the orioles may be seen pulling out or off any hour in the day if the nest be located in a tree. If they have found a suitable banana leaf they work only in the morning and evening, as the leaf folds up like a book in the daytime, and the sharp apex under which the nest cuddles is difficult to reach.

An oriole works only from below, pushing the thread up, and pulling it down the width of two or three veins away from the first stitch, making a good hold. She first leaves a dozen or twenty threads swinging, after doubling her stitches to make them fast. Then she ties and twists the ends of the threads together at suitable length and width for the inner lining of the hammock; thus fashioning the inner space first and adding to the outside. When the whole is completed, she lines it with soft materials, using but one kind of material in the same lining. The banana-leaf hammock has two openings, back and front, through either of which the birds enter or emerge. As the nest progresses in size the leaf is spread apart, until on completion the thick midrib passes directly over the nest and fixes the shape of the whole like a roof or a tent. It is cool and always swinging, and on the whole is an ideal nursery.

The adaptation of the oriole's feet for clinging and perching is a good thought of nature, else the bird could never weave from below as she does. She sticks her sharp toes through the mesh of the leaf, clinging to a rib while she works.

This custom of beginning on the inside of the nest marks the building instincts of all the hang-birds, for should they reverse the order they would make a mere tangle without inside proportions. It would be impossible to weave from without. As the nest progresses the outer threads are coarser and less closely woven, brought together at certain points of attachment to the twig or the leaf rib, and making a nest the winds might play with, but not steal away.

The oriole's nest is the poetry of bird architecture, be it swung in an apple-tree or an elm or a maple, or under a leaf. Her slender beak is her needle, her shuttle her hands, her one means of livelihood. We may call her fabric a tangle if we will; to the eye of Mother Nature it is a texture surpassing human ingenuity, the art for making which has descended by instinct to all her family. It is as beautiful as seaweed, as intricate as the network of a foxglove leaf, and suggests the indefinite strands of a lace-work spider's cocoon. All homage to the oriole!

What a piece of good fortune it is that they Come faithfully back to us every May; No matter how far in the winter they roam, They are sure to return to their summer home.

What money could buy such a suit as this? What music can match that voice of his? And who such a quaint little house could build, To be with a beautiful family filled?

O happy winds that shall rock them soft, In their swinging cradle hung high aloft; O happy leaves that the nest shall screen. And happy sunbeams that steal between.

Celia Thaxter.