GOLDEN ORIOLE. 103 



racter of a rare straggler, seen generally in spring 

 or autumn, as if the birds had been driven, or 

 had wandered from the regular course of their 

 migration ; one or two instances only are 

 mentioned of their having bred in this country, 

 which may have taken place under circumstances 

 entirely fortuitous. During summer, the south 

 of Europe seems to be the stronghold of this 

 beautiful species, straggling northward to Great 

 Britain and as far as Sweden, abounding during 

 the season of incubation in the islands of the 

 Mediterranean, where they assemble in their 

 passage from Northern Africa, but how far they 

 extend on that continent, or how far they pass 

 the Asiatic line, we do not know. The species 

 so frequently received from the Continent and 

 islands of India is distinct, and so also is that 

 from Southern and Western Africa ; in both, the 

 black between the rictus and the eye passes 

 through it over the auriculars, as we have endea- 

 voured to represent in a woodcut of O. bicolor, 

 in the opposite page. In our British bird it 

 stretches only to the eye. 



The nest has been stated by some writers to 

 be of a lengthened and suspended structure, but 

 there seems to have been a good deal of uncer- 

 tainty regarding this point, although in France 

 there appears no great difficulty in procuring the 

 eggs. From the vignette given by Mr Yarrell,* 

 drawn from a nest in the collection of the Zoolo- 

 gical Society, it is of the ordinary round shape, 

 * History of British Birds. 



