GOLDEN ORIOLE. 235 



which are so curiously interwoven as mutually to confine 

 and sustain each other ; the lining consists of the flowering 

 heads of grasses. The vignette at the end of this article 

 represents a nest of this bird, taken from a specimen sent to 

 the Zoological Society by Professor Passerini of Florence. 

 Another nest of this bird, said to have been taken in 

 Suffolk, and exactly resembling the one just mentioned, is 

 represented in Meyer's ' Illustrations of British Birds.' The 

 eggs are usually four or five in number, measuring from 

 1*4 to 1*1 by from *9 to '78 in., and are of a shining white or 

 warm cream- colour, with a few very dark reddish-purple spots 

 and a few grey specks, which are often confluent and blurred 

 at the edges. The female is said to be so tenacious of 

 her eggs as to suffer herself to be taken with the nest. 

 Bechstein says that the parents rear but one brood in a 

 season. The food of this species is various, consisting of 

 insects and their Iarva3, with figs, cherries, grapes, and other 

 fruits in their season. 



The voice of the Golden Oriole is loud, full and flute-like. 

 From its call-note some of the common names by which this 

 bird is known in various countries of Europe, and especially 

 in certain parts of France and Spain, have been thought to 

 be derived, but it would rather seem that they are corrup- 

 tions of the Latin aureolus, and have reference to the golden 

 colour of the plumage.* Of quite other origin, however, 

 are certain names given to this species in Germany, of which 

 Weidwatt and Witwell will serve as examples. With these 

 is clearly cognate the English " Witwall," though when this 

 is nowadays used at all it is applied to the Green Wood- 

 pecker, probably as the bird which by its colours most 

 recalled to our Teutonic forefathers the continental species 

 so familiar to them. 



In April, 1824, a young male in its third stage of plumage, 

 to be presently described in full, was shot at Aldershot, in 

 Hampshire, and having been purchased by the late Dr. 

 Thackeray, by whom it was obligingly lent for the use of 



* See the word Loriot in Littre's 'Dictionaire de la Langue Fran^aise,' ii. 

 p. 344. Paris : 1869. 



