Birds and Nature, Vol. 12 No. 5 [December 1902]

Various

Various

Birds and Nature, Vol. 12 No. 5 [December 1902]

DECEMBER

When the feud of hot and cold

Leaves the autumn woodlands bare;

When the year is getting old,

And flowers are dead, and keen the air;

When the crow has new concern,

And early sounds his raucous note;

And – where the late witch-hazels burn —

The squirrel from a chuckling throat

Tells that one larder’s space is filled,

And tilts upon a towering tree;

And, valiant, quick, and keenly thrilled,

Upstarts the tiny chickadee;

When the sun’s still shortening arc

Too soon night’s shadows dun and gray

Brings on, and fields are drear and dark,

And summer birds have flown away, —

I feel the year’s slow-beating heart,

The sky’s chill prophecy I know;

And welcome the consummate art

Which weaves this spotless shroud of snow!

    – Joel Benton, in “Songs of Nature.”

THE HOODED ORIOLE

(Icterus cucullatus.)

Only a very limited portion of the United States is beautified by the presence of the bright colored Hooded Oriole. The North has the richly plumaged Baltimore oriole for a short time each year, but only the far southeastern part of Texas is enlivened by this graceful, active bird of our illustration, which is “so full of song that the woods are filled with music all the day.” Both of these birds seem hardly to belong to the North, where somber colors seem more in harmony with a severer climate. The Hooded Oriole does not attempt the journey and when we see the Baltimore,

“A winged flame that darts and burns,

Dazzling where’er his bright wing turns,”

in our northern woods we cannot but ask, with the poet,

“How falls it, Oriole, thou hast come to fly

In tropic splendor through our northern sky?

At some glad moment was it Nature’s choice

To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice?”

The Hooded Oriole has a very narrow range, reaching from Texas southward through eastern Mexico to Honduras, and during our northern winters it has the Baltimore as an associate. It is a social bird and frequents the home of man. One writer relating his experience with this Oriole says: “They were continually appearing about the thatched roof of our houses and the arbors adjoining for insects; they were more familiar than any of the other Orioles about the ranch.”

It not only delights man by its song and beautiful coloring, but its presence is also beneficial, for it destroys countless adult insects and their larvæ.

The Hooded Oriole seldom builds its nest higher than from six to twelve feet above the ground, though in a few instances it has been found as high as thirty feet. Dr. James C. Merrill, in his Notes on the Ornithology of Texas, says, “The nests of this bird found here are perfectly characteristic, and cannot be confounded with those of any allied species. They are usually found in one of the two following situations: The first and most frequent is in a bunch of hanging moss, usually at no great height from the ground; when so placed the nests are formed almost entirely by hollowing out and matting the moss, with a few filaments of a dark, hairlike moss as a lining. The second situation is in a bush growing to a height of about six feet, a nearly bare stem, throwing out two or three irregular masses of leaves at the top. These bunches of dark green leaves conceal the nest admirably. It is constructed of filaments of the hair-like mass just referred to, with a little Spanish moss, wool, or a few feathers for the lining. They are rather wide and shallow for orioles’ nests, and though strong they appear thin and delicate.” Not infrequently the Hooded Oriole builds its nest in plants called the Spanish bayonet or yucca. In such a situation the walls are constructed almost entirely of the fibers of the plant torn from dried leaves. These fibers are tough and the nest walls are much more durable than when made with moss. Wool or vegetable dow