SEPTEMBER. 147 



A WELCOME RESIDENT. 



It is in this respect that the news from Cornwall 

 of the oriole breeding there for tzvo successive years 

 is so welcome; because the last sixty years have 

 produced scarcely half a dozen records of orioles' 

 nests, and in almost every case, of course, the eggs 

 have been taken. The present Cornish record ap- 

 pears, therefore, unique ; for although the nests have 

 not been discovered the birds have been watched by 

 a keen observer of wild life, and he is certain that 

 they have bred. The record is interesting in another 

 way, too, because Kent, Norfolk, Essex, and North- 

 amptonshire are the counties where golden orioles' 

 nests have previously been discovered, and it is not 

 impossible that the bird, which has the habits of a 

 thrush, might become a resident in the far south- 

 west of the country, where the little chiff-chaff, a 

 migrant elsewhere, often prefers braving the mild 

 winters of Cornwall or Devon to risking the passage 

 of the wide Channel. The first glimpse, by the way, 

 which you catch of a golden oriole is usually as a 

 streak of yellow passing swiftly between the recesses 

 of a shrubbery ; though in spring his call-note, a 

 whistled " Who are you ? " is generally the announce- 

 ment of his presence. 



THE GULL'S DISAPPOINTMENT. 



September 18. The gulls which come in hosts to 

 our fields near the sea for the winter have had a hard 

 time with the lateness of the harvest on the east 

 coast. It has been as bad as a prolonged frost to 



