ee eee 
GOLDEN ORIOLE. 591 
apparently produced by prefixing or interluding its call-note. It is a pity 
the song is so short; for in quality it is scarcely exceeded by the song of 
any other bird. Naumann describes its ordinary call-note as a clear 
gyake, yake, yake, and its alarm-note as a harsh khrr. 
The food of the Golden Oriole is principally insects; but in autumn it 
is very fond of fruit, especially cherries. 
The nest of the Golden Oriole is unlike that of any other European 
bird. This wanderer from the tropics, the date of whose immigration into 
the Palearctic Region is probably comparatively recent, seems to have 
retained his tropical habits of nest-building. The nest is perhaps more 
curious than beautiful. It is most artistically made; but the art is that of 
the mechanical kind. The nest is always suspended from the fork of a 
horizontal branch, sometimes of a pine tree, but generally of an oak, and 
is usually placed from twenty to thirty feet above the ground. The out- 
side is composed of broad sedges and strips of inner bark, which are wrapped 
round the two branches forming the fork from which the nest is pendent. 
I have generally found intertwined with these long narrow strips a few 
withered leaves, and almost invariably a scrap or two of a Dutch newspaper. 
The lining is composed of the slender round grass-stalks, very frequently 
with the flower of the grass attached. It is said that the male relieves the 
female in the duties of incubation, and drives off any intruder with great 
daring. It has the general reputation of being a quarrelsome bird, and in 
spring the males are often seen fighting either for the possession of the 
females or for the range of some favourite plantation. Like the Jay, the 
Golden Oriole has some peculiarities which are not altogether Corvine. 
His flight is undulating, not straight; and on the ground he hops, not 
walks. 
A full clutch of eggs is usually four or five. They are creamy white in 
ground-colour, sometimes with an almost imperceptible tinge of pink, 
sparingly spotted with very dark purplish brown. ‘The spots vary con- 
siderably in size and shape, but are almost invariably well defined; on 
many specimens there are a few underlying spots of purplish grey. The 
shell is somewhat rough in texture, but highly polished. They vary in 
length from 1°35 to 1:1 inch, and in breadth from *93 to ‘8 inch. The 
eggs of the Golden Oriole cannot be mistaken for those of any other 
British bird. 
Dixon made the following notes on this bird :—“ In Algeria the Golden 
Oriole haunts the palm-studded oases, full of tropical verdure, equally as 
much as the groves of timber on the sides of the noble Aurés Mountains. 
It is one of the shyest birds I know; and usually the observer has to 
content himself with a hurried glimpse of its beautiful plumage, as, like a 
flash of burnished gold, the bird glistens in the bright sunlight a moment, 
and then disappears in the gloom. At this time of the year (May) all 
the Orioles seem in pairs, and fly from grove to grove im company. 
