t on the slender
swaying branches. Up there the eggs and young are safely rocked by the
wind and sheltered by leaves. A cat may look at a king, and also at an
Oriole's nest, but the looking will not do her much good in either case.

[Illustration: Baltimore Oriole.]

"Mamma Oriole sits on the nest, which is almost
closed over her head, and keeps all safe. Though she
does not sing to House People, how do we know but
what she whispers a little lullaby like this, on stormy
nights, to her nestlings?

"Rains beat! Winds blow!
Safe the nest in the elm tree.
Days come! Nights go!
Birds at rest in the elm tree.
To-and-fro, to-a-n-d-fro,
Safe are we from every foe--
Orioles in the elm tree.
Cats come! Cats go!
Lullaby in the elm tree!

"Meanwhile B. Oriole does a great deal of work, for he is a tireless
member of the guilds of Tree Trappers and Ground Gleaners, eating hosts
of caterpillars, wireworms, and beetles. When he is very thirsty he
does, now and then, take a sip of the fruit he has helped to save, and
once in a while he may eat a few green peas. But would any one refuse a
mess of peas to a neighbor in the next house? Then why should you
begrudge a few to neighbor B. Oriole? He doubtless paid you for them
before he took them, or will do so before long.

"B. Oriole comes, north before his mate to be, and spends a few days in
fretting until she arrives. Then he sings a gladsome song, to tell her
of his pleasure, and she answers, I am sorry to say, in rather a
complaining tone; but the match is soon made. Though they are not the
sweetest-tempered birds possible, they are as quick to aid as to quarrel
with their neighbors.

"Their bright colors seem rather out of place in the family which
contains also our sombre Blackbirds, but before the leaves have fallen
both kinds of Orioles and their families start for Mexico and Central
America, where such tropical hues seem more in keeping, and where many
members of the family are quite as brilliant as those we see here."
"There goes another Oriole!" cried Nat. "What a beauty, too! I suppose
he has a nest high up in one of these elms over the road."

"Very likely, for in autumn, when the trees are bare, I have sometimes
counted a dozen Orioles' nests in this very row of elms."

"Look, Uncle Roy! Look over in that pasture! What are all those black
and brown birds walking round after the cows, just as chickens do?" said
Dodo.

"Those are m