From four
to six whitish eggs, scrawled over with black-brown, are hatched by the mother
oriole, and most jealously guarded by her now truly domesticated mate.
The number of grubs, worms, flies, caterpillars, and even cocoons, that go to
satisfy the hunger of a family of orioles in a day, might indicate, if it
could be computed, the great value these birds are about our homes, aside from
the good cheer they bring.
There is a popular tradition about the naming of this gorgeous bird: When
George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, worn out and discouraged by various
hardships in his Newfoundland colony, decided to visit Virginia in 1628, he
wrote that nothing in the Chesapeake country so impressed him as the myriads
of birds in its woods. But the song and color of the oriole particularly
cheered and delighted him, and orange and black became the heraldic colors of
the first lords proprietors of Maryland.
Hush! 'tis he! My Oriole, my glance of summer fire,
Is come at last; and ever on the watch,
Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly wound
About the bough to help his housekeeping.
Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck,
Yet fearing me who laid it in his way.
Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs,
Divines the Providence that hides and helps.
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