or Oriole, in ornithology, a genus belonging to the order of passerine birds. The bill in this genus is short, conic, very sharp-pointed; edges cultrated, inclining inwards; mandibles of equal length. No-

frills small, placed at the base of the bill, and partly covered. Tongue divided at the end. Toes, three forward, one backward; the middle joined near the base to the outmost one.—These birds are inhabitants of America, except in a few instances; are a noisy, gregarious, frugivorous, granivorous, and voracious race, very numerous, and often have penile nests. The several species (which are very numerous, for Mr Latham enumerates and describes 45) seem to be principally distinguished by their colour. We have given engravings of two of them, the sharp tailed and Baltimore oriole.

1. The sharp-tailed oriole is about the size of a lark: The bill is dusky; the crown is brown and cinereous; the cheeks are brown, bounded above and below with deep dull yellow. The throat is white; the breast, sides, thighs, and vent, are a dull pale yellow, spotted with brown; the belly is white; the back is varied with ash-colour, black and white; the wing-coverts are dusky, with ferruginous edges. The quills are also dusky; the tail consists of narrow sharp pointed feathers, of a dusky colour tinged with olive, and obscurely barred; and the legs are pale brown.

The other species, which we shall describe, is called the Baltimore bird by Catesby and Latham, le Baltimore by Buffon, the oriolus Baltimore by Linnaeus, and the Baltimore oriole by Pennant, and is an inhabitant of North America; which country it quits before winter, and probably retires to Mexico, the zoologist of Fernandez seeming to be of the same species. The head, throat, neck, and upper part of the back of the male, is described to be black; the lesser coverts of the wings orange; the greater black, tipped with white; the breast, belly, lower part of the back, and coverts of the tail, of a bright orange; the primaries dusky, edged with white; the two middle feathers of the tail black; the lower part of the same colour, the remaining part orange; and the legs black. The head and back of the female is orange, edged with pale brown; the coverts of the wings of the same colour, marked with a single bar of white; the under side of the body and coverts of the tail yellow; the tail dusky, edged with yellow. The length both of the male and female is seven inches.—This bird suspends its nest to the horizontal forks of the tulip and poplar trees, formed of the filaments of some tough plants, curiously woven, mixed with wool, and lined with hairs. It is of a pear shape, open at top, with a hole on the side through which the young discharge their excrements, and are fed. In some parts of North America, this species, from its brilliant colour, is called the fiery hangnail. It is named the Baltimore bird from its colours, resembling those in the arms of the late Lord Baltimore, whose family were proprietors of Maryland.

There are several other species of the oriole, all inhabitants of North America. These, according to Mr Pennant's enumeration, are the white-backed, the bastard, the black, the brown headed, the rufly, the white-headed, the Hudsonian white-headed, the olive, the yellow-throated, the unalaschka, the sharp-tailed, and the red-wing. This last species is known in America by the name of the red-winged starling and the swamp black-bird. Although they appear at New York only from April to October, they probably continue through the whole year in the southern parts; at least, Catesby Catesby and Latham make no mention of their departure. They are seen at times in such prodigious flocks, as even to obscure the sky. They were esteemed the pest of the colonies, making most dreadful havoc among the maize and other grain, both when new grown and when ripe. They are very bold, and not to be terrified by a gun; for notwithstanding the sportsman makes slaughter in a flock, the remainder will take a short flight, and settle again in the same field. The farmers sometimes attempt their destruction, by steeping the maize before they sow it in a decoction of white hellebore. The birds that eat this prepared corn, are seized with a vertigo, and fall down; which sometimes drives the rest away. This potion is particularly aimed at the purple grackles or purple jackdaw, which conforts in myriads with this species, as if in conspiracy against the labours of the husbandman. The fowler seldom fires among the flocks without killing some of each. They appear in greatest numbers in autumn, when they receive additions from the retired parts of the country, in order to prey on the ripened maize. Some of the colonies established a reward of three-pence a dozen for the extirpation of the jackdaws; and, in New England, the intent was almost effected at the cost of the inhabitants; who discovered, at length, that Providence had not formed these seemingly destructive birds in vain. Notwithstanding they caused such havoc among the grain, they made ample recompense, by clearing the ground of the noxious worms* with which it abounds. As soon as the birds were destroyed, the reptiles had full leave to multiply; and the consequence was the total loss of the crops in 1749, when the New Englanders, too late repentants, were obliged to get their hay from Pennsylvania, and even from Great Britain.

There is besides another oriole of this species, called the bastard Baltimore: Its size is that of the true Baltimore, but it measures somewhat less in length: the bill is lead-coloured; the forehead and cheeks black mixed with yellow; the hind head and nape are olive grey, marked with a few spots of black; the upper part of the back is the same, but somewhat duller; the lower part of the back, the rump, fore-part of the neck, breast, belly, sides, thighs, upper and lower tail-coverts, and under the wings, are orange-yellow, but brightest on the breast and tail coverts; the lesser wing-coverts are deep brown; the greater are the same, tipped with dirty yellowish white: the quills are brown, bordered on both edges with white; the two middle tail-feathers are olive, then blackish, marked at the end with a longitudinal yellowish spot; the next on each side are olive and black, confusedly mixed; and the four outer ones are of a yellowish olive: the legs and claws are bluish. They inhabit North America.

There seems to be great confusion and uncertainty in the true and bastard Baltimores and their females; most likely at last they may, the whole of them, turn out mere varieties of one single species, all of them perhaps referable to one or other sex of the true Baltimore, in the different stages of life.

It would be absurd, and indeed impossible, without enlarging the article beyond all bounds, to describe each particular variety; we shall therefore refer those of our readers who wish for a more copious account, to Mr Latham's Synopsis of Birds, where the whole genus is more minutely and more accurately described than anywhere else that we know.