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

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,

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

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 down may be used as a lining, but it is not uncommon to find no lining. The Hooded Oriole is not free from the intrusion of feathered rascals. Major Bendire says that it “is considerably imposed upon by both the red-eyed and the dwarf cow-birds, and in a few instances parasitic eggs of both species are found in the same nest.”

Though it has incurred the bitter condemnation of all housewives, the clothes moth is quite an interesting little body from the naturalist’s point of view. The species known in the United States bears the long name Pellionella. Its larva constructs a case for its occupancy. The moths themselves are very small and well fitted for making their way through minute holes and chinks. The mother insect deposits her eggs in or near such material as will be best adapted for food for the young. Further, she distributes them so that there may be a plentiful supply and enough room for each.

When one of the scattered family issues from the egg its first care is to provide itself with a home, or more correctly speaking, a dress. Having decided upon a proper site it cuts out a filament of cloth and places it on a line with its body. Another is cut and placed parallel with the first. The two are then bound together by a few threads of silk from the caterpillar’s own body. The same process is repeated with other hairs until the little creature has made a fabric of some thickness. This it extends until it is large enough to cover its whole body. It chooses the longer threads for the outside and finishes the inner side by a closely woven tapestry of silk. The dress being complete, the larva begins to feed on the material of the cloth.

When it outgrows its clothes, which happens in the course of time, it proceeds to enlarge them. With the dexterity of a tailor it slits the coat, or case, on the two opposite sides, and inserts two pieces of the requisite size. All this is managed without the least exposure of its body. Neither side being slit all at once. Concealed in its movable silk lined roll it spends the summer plying its sharp reaping hooks amid the harvest of tapestry.

In the fall it ceases to eat, fixes its habitation, and lies torpid during the winter. With the early spring it changes to a chrysalis within its case, and in about twenty days thereafter it emerges as a winged moth, which flies about in the evening until it has found a mate and is ready to lay eggs.

There is much to be learned about the habits of birds, even in a casual observation of them as we meet them from time to time.

It is well known that the English sparrow is not friendly toward other birds, often driving them from their nests and even going so far as to destroy both these and their young.

Upon one occasion a sparrow took possession of the partially completed nest of a pair of martins, in process of construction, beneath the eaves of a farmhouse. When the martins returned with their load of mud for its walls, the sparrow, intrenched within, drove them away with scolding cries and fluttering wings, resisting all their attempts at dislodging him. Time after time the attack was renewed, all to no avail. There he was and there he proposed to remain.