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.
[Illustration: BALTIMORE ORIOLE.]
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.