148 THE GOLDEN ORIOLE 



wanderings take him as far as Damaraland, the Knysna forest 

 in Cape Colony, Natal, the Transvaal, German East Africa, and 

 Madagascar. Generally the recorder notes the species as not 

 common, while Andersson remarks on the preponderance of im- 

 mature birds, and says that they arrive in Damaraland at the 

 beginning of the rainy season. A partial moult, in which the small 

 feathers are renewed but the primaries and tail-feathers are not 

 shed, takes place about February, and gradually the great oriole 

 army, in brilliant plumage, begins its long journey towards its 

 northern home. It is evident that there is no common route, but 

 that some gradually work up along the west coast towards Marocco, 

 making for the Straits of Gibraltar ; others as certainly travel down 

 the Nile valley through Nubia and Egypt; and as they become 

 plentiful in Algeria and Tunisia about the same time, it is evident 

 that other detachments cross the Sahara ; while on the eastern side 

 some cross the Red Sea and pass through Arabia on their way to 

 their breeding grounds in the Persian Highlands and the Altai 

 range in Eastern Turkestan. A good many birds stop to breed in 

 the valleys of the Atlas range in Marocco and Algeria, and Whitaker 

 also describes them as nesting in cool wooded spots in the mountain 

 forests of Northern Tunisia. But the main body pushes on across 

 the Mediterranean, and apparently none stay to nest in the plains of 

 Lower Egypt. Our information is now rather more definite, and it 

 is clear that certain recognised routes are adopted in order to cross 

 the Mediterranean. The most westerly of these is by the Straits of 

 Gibraltar, and probably most of the birds which visit us arrive by 

 this line, although it is possible that our Kentish immigrants may 

 have travelled through Sardinia and Corsica. On the Spanish side 

 of the Straits, Irby notes that the passage begins on the llth, 18th, 

 or even 21st of April, and lasts till about May 14th or 15th. Much 

 smaller numbers face the passage to Sardinia, reaching the east 

 coast of Corsica about April 24th to 29th, and passing on rapidly 

 to South-east France and North-west Italy, where they are noted 



