As a matter of fact, both our orioles need a good stock of patience as well as of resignation, for the infants of both are unceasing in their cries, and fertile in inventing variations in manner and inflection, that would deceive those most familiar with them. Two or three times in the weeks that followed, I rushed out of the house to find some very distressed bird, who, I was sure, from the cries, must be impaled alive on a butcher-bird's meat-hook, or undergoing torture at the hands--or beak of somebody. It was rather dangerous going out at that time (just at dusk), for it was the chosen hour for young men and maidens, of whom there were several, to wander about under the trees. Often, before I gave up going out at that hour, my glass, turned to follow a flitting wing, would bring before my startled gaze a pair of sentimental young persons, who doubtless thought I was spying upon them. My only safety was in directing my glass into the trees, where nothing but wings could be sentimental, and if a bird flitted below the level of branches, to consider him lost. On following up the cry, I always found a young oriole and a hard-worked father feeding him. The voice did not even suggest an oriole to me, until I had been deceived two or three times and understood it.
The young ones of the orchard oriole's nest lived up to the traditions of the family by being inveterate cry-babies, and making so much noise they could be heard far around. Sometimes their mother addressed them in a similar tone to their own, but the father resigned himself to the inevitable, and fed with dogged perseverance.
The apple-tree nest looked in the morning sun of a bright flax color, and two of the young were mounted on the edge, dressing their yellow satin breasts, and gleaming in the sunshine like gold.
A Baltimore oriole, passing over, seemed to be attracted by a familiar quality of sound, for he came down, alighted about a foot from the nest, and looked with interest upon the charming family scene. The protector of the pretty brood was near, but he kept his seat, and made no objections to the friendly call. Indeed, he flew away while the guest was still there, and having satisfied his curiosity, the Baltimore also departed upon his own business.
