51 



like feature, which must be of service to the bird in 

 facilitating its progress over down-trodden or storm- 

 laid grass. I have never seen them except in pairs, 

 and they generally are found in the long grass round 

 the dry swamps or rice-fields, where, when almost 

 stepped on, they rise like Larks, but they never 

 attempt to soar, and drop into cover again at the 

 first opportunity. 



WAGTAILS are common everywhere, especially 

 during the winter, when numbers of both the White- 

 and the Blue-headed Wagtail (^M. alba and M. flava) 

 frequent the sands near Bathurst ; the latter is also 

 common in the fields farther inland, where they are 

 always to be found in small flocks or family parties, 

 especial!}^ round the places where the cows are tied up 

 at night, where insect-life is naturally particularly 

 abundant, and, ^^to a bird, no doubt most appetising. 

 The Grey {Af. melaiiope) and our Yellow Wagtail 

 (A/, ca^npestris) have also been recorded as occasional 

 winter visitors to the Gambia. 



ORIOLES. A Golden Oriole, (probably Oriohis 

 aiiratns, though it may be the European species 

 O. galbiila, I am not sufficiently versed in the subject 

 to say), is by no means uncommon. They breed in 

 large trees, but are rarely seen in the breeding season, 

 when they keep mostly to the thick cover of the 

 heavily foliaged trees. In the dry season, however, 

 when the wild figs are ripe, the fruit of which comes 

 before the leaves, the Orioles are often seen ; indeed 

 one rarely finds one of these trees in fruit that does 

 not contain at least a couple of these birds, among the 

 numerous other species all busily engaged in gorging 

 the much coveted fruit. 



(^To be contimied'). 



