“The migration of the Orchard Oriole from south to north is performed by day, and singly, as is that of its relative the Baltimore Oriole, the males appearing a week or ten days sooner than the females . . .

“The arrival of the females is marked with all due regard, and the males immediately use every effort in their power to procure from them a return of attention.  Their singings and tricks are performed with redoubled ardour, until they are paired, when nidification [nest-building] is attended to with the utmost activity . . .

The nest represented in the plate was drawn in Louisiana, and was entirely composed of grass . . . The branch of Honey Locust on which you see these birds belongs to a tree which sometimes grows to a great height . . . it bears a long pod, containing a sweet substance, not unlike that of the honey of bees, and which is eaten by children, when it becomes quite ripe.  The spines are made use of by tobacconists for the purpose of fastening together the different twists of their rolls.”

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 222-224 [excerpted].