656 ORGAN-BIRD— ORIOLE 



beautiful fruit." He assigns to it also the name of Cashew-bird ; 

 but it is not the Cashew-bird of older authors. 



OEGAN-BIRD, the name in Tasmania for the species of 

 Gymnorhina there found (Gould, Handb. B. Austral, i. p. 178). 



ORGANIST, the English rendering of the Organiste of Buffon 

 (Hist. Nat. Ois. iv. p. 290), though it may be questionable whether 

 all the information he cites really refers to this species, which is the 

 Pipra musica of Gmelin, and Euphonia musica of modern ornithology, 

 an inhabitant of Hispaniola. Other congeneric species inhabit 

 Jamaica, Porto Rico and some of the Lesser Antilles, though none 

 is found in Cuba, while many more occur from Mexico throughout 

 Central and most parts of South America. Mr. Sclater recognizes 

 33 species in all {Cat. B. Br. Mus. xi. pp. 58-83). 



ORIOLE, from the Old French Oriol and that from the Latin 

 aureolus, the name once applied, from its golden colouring, to the 

 bird generally admitted to be the Vireo or Icterus (page 457) 

 of classical authors — the Oriolus galhula of Linnaeus — but now 

 commonly used in a much wider sense. The Golden Oriole, 

 which is the type of the Family Oriolidss of modern ornithologists, 

 is a far from uncommon spring- visitor to the British Islands ; 

 but the conspicuous plumage of the male — bright yellow contrasted 

 with black, chiefly on the wings and tail — always attracts atten- 

 tion, and usually brings about its death. Yet a few instances are 

 known in which it is supposed to have bred in England. The nest 

 is a beautifully interwoven fabric, suspended under the horizontal 

 fork of a bough, to both branches of which it is firmly attached, 

 and the eggs are of a shining white sometimes tinged with pink, 

 and sparsely spotted with dark purple. On the Continent it is a 

 well-known though not an abundant bird, and its range in summer 

 extends so far to the east as Irkutsk, while in winter it is found in 

 Natal and Damaraland. In India it is replaced by a closely allied 

 form, 0. kundoo, chiefly distinguishable by the male possessing a 

 black streak behind as well as in front of the eye ; and both in 

 Asia and Africa are several other species more or less resembling 

 0. galhda, but some depart considerably from that type, assuming 

 a black head, or even a glowing crimson instead of the ordinary 

 yellow colouring, while others again remain constant to the dingy 

 type of plumage which characterizes the female of the more normal 

 form. Among these last are the aberrant species of the group 

 Mimetes or Miraeta, belonging to the Australian Region, respecting 

 which Mr. Wallace pointed out the very curious facts — as yet only 

 explicable on the theory of "unconscious Mimicry" — of which 

 mention has already been made (pages 573, 574). The external 

 similarity of the Mimeta and the Philemon or Tropidorhynchus (Fkiar- 

 Bird) of the island of Bouru is perfectly wonderful, and has again 



