236 ORIOIJD.E. 



this work, has passed with the rest of his collection to the 

 Museum of Eton College. But there is no need to enume- 

 rate the various examples of this species which have been 

 obtained in England, for, as has been said, it appears 

 almost every spring in the southern and eastern counties, 

 from Cornwall to Norfolk, and especially often in the first 

 and last of them, Sussex, Kent, and Suffolk being the next 

 in order of abundance. In the west of England it has 

 occurred by forty at a time ; but most generally it appears in 

 pairs, though the female from her less conspicuous plumage 

 often escapes observation ; and the stupid practice of almost 

 invariably destroying on their arrival these birds, some of 

 which would doubtless, if undisturbed, breed as freely in our 

 woods and orchards as they do on the continent, is a matter 

 of deep regret to every right-thinking ornithologist. It 

 must not however be supposed that this hai:)py result would 

 invariably follow upon protection being accorded to the 

 Golden Oriole, for in some of the rare cases in which the 

 birds have been unmolested, or even pains taken to preserve 

 them, they have disappeared after a short sojourn. In 

 Scilly, where the species has perhaps been more often 

 observed and less frequently disturbed than in any part of 

 the British Islands, suitable haunts are obviously wanting ; 

 but there are other places where no such cause can be 

 assigned for their not stopping, and it would seem that 

 though willing to make a temporary resting place, the 

 migratory impulse is not fully expended, and they strive to 

 reach some more distant quarters. In Dorsetshire Mr. 

 Octavius Pickard- Cambridge writes (Zool. p. 4366) that a 

 male bird was constantly seen in a garden at Bloxworth for 

 more than a week in May, 1854, and though a large extent 

 of woodland ai^d orchard adjoins the place, yet nothing 

 came of it. Some nests however are reported to have been 

 found, and especially in Kent. Thus Mr. J. Pemberton 

 Bartlett states (Zool. p. 824) that in June, 1836, one was 

 discovered in an ash-plantation near Ord, from which the 

 young were taken ; but, though every care was shewn them, 

 they did not long survive their captivity. Mr. J. B. Ellman 



