26 BIRDS OF GUERNSEY. 



alive or found any record of the occurrence of the 

 Golden Oriole in Guernsey or the neighbouring 

 Islands, and beyond the fact that there was one 

 example — a female — in the Museum (which may 

 have been from Jersey) I had been able to gain no 

 information on the subject except of a negative sort. 

 No specimen had passed through the hands of the 

 local bird-stuffers certainly for a good many years, 

 for Mr. Jago's mother who about twenty or thirty 

 years ago, when she was Miss Cumber, had been 

 for some considerable time the only bu*d-stuffer in 

 the Island, told me she did not know the bird, and 

 had never had one through her hands. It seemed 

 to me rather odd that a bird which occurs almost 

 every year in the British Islands, occasionally even 

 as far west as Ireland, as a straggler, and which is 

 generally distributed over the continent of Europe 

 in the summer, should be totally unknown in the 

 Channel Islands. Consequently writing to the 

 ' Star ' about another Guernsey bird — a Hoopoe — 

 which had been recorded in that paper, I asked for 

 information as to the occurrence of the Golden 

 Oriole in the Islands, and shortly after the following 

 letter signed " Tereus "* appeared in the ' Star ' : — 

 " Concerning the occurrence of the Golden Oriole I 

 cannot speak from my own personal knowledge, but 

 I believe there can be no doubt that the bu'd has 

 been occasionally seen here. Its presence, however, 



* " Tereus," I soon found, as I expected, was Mr. MacCullocli. 



