Page:The Way of the Wild (1923).pdf/147



the only real rock-a-bye baby I know of is the young oriole as it swings to and fro in its wonderful horsehair nest at the end of an elm bough. The gray squirrel, in the autumn or winter, is also something of a rock-a-bye baby as he swings in his leaf nest in the fork of a high tree. But I think the Mother Goose rhymes must have referred to the oriole.

For several years Sunbeam and Sweetheart, a pair of Baltimore orioles, have swung their wonderful nest from an elm-tree in my dooryard, so I am very well acquainted with them and we are on the best of terms. I usually help them a bit in nest-building time and that is perhaps why we are such good friends.

Over two hundred years ago Lord Baltimore, an Englishman, wished to establish a colony for himself and his friends in the new world. He first selected Newfoundland, but