GOLDEN ORIOLE. Orto'Ztw gallula. 



devouring creatures which are specially rife in the spring, and destroy so much fruit in 

 its earliest stages. As is often the case with the insect-eating birds, the Golden Oriole has 

 a great taste for fruit when it is quite ripe, and in the autumn is very fond of the best and 

 mellowest fruits, having an especial predilection for cherries, figs, and grapes. Perhaps it 

 may be able to detect the larva of some insect within the fruit, and to do good service by 

 destroying it before it has come to maturity. 



The nest of this bird is a very elegantly formed and well-constructed edifice, of a 

 shallow cup-like shape, and usually placed in a horizontal fork of a convenient branch. 

 The materials of which it is made are mostly delicate grass-stems interwoven with wool 

 so firmly that the whole structure is strong and warm. The eggs are generally four or five 

 in number, and their colour is purplish white, sparely marked with blotches of a deep red 

 and ashen grey. It is believed that there is but one brood in the year, so that the species 

 does not multiply very rapidly. Sometimes the bird is said to build a deep and purse- 

 like nest, which is suspended from the forked branch instead of being placed upon it. 



This species has a very peculiar note, loud, flute-like, and of a singularly articulate 

 character, as may be supposed. from the fact already mentioned, that the Italian peasantry 

 believe it to speak their language. Bechsteiii considers the note to resemble the word 

 " puhlo," and many writers think that the different names of Oriole, Turiole, Loriot, Pirol, 

 and Billow are given to the creature in imitation of its cry. 



The colour of the adult male is bright yellow over the whole of the head, neck, and 

 body, with the exception of the wings, the two central tail-feathers, and the basal portions 

 of the remaining feathers, which are jetty black, the two colours contrasting finely with 

 each other. Across the eye runs a dark stripe, and the eyes themselves are bright 

 pinky red. In the young bird the yellow is of a dusky greenish hue, and the black feathers 

 are of a dingy brown, and according to Mr. Yarrell the young males after their first moult 

 resemble the old females. In the second year the yellow of the back is more decided, and 

 the wings and tail are of a deeper black, and in many of the remaining feathers the 

 colours are less brilliant than in the bird of full plumage. It is rather curious that as the 

 bird breeds in its second year, it is hardly possible to distinguish the sexes, both wearing 



