The Zoologist — November, 1874. 4233 



and the young were then just hatched. Mr. Baukes Tomlin having 

 liindly invited me to come and see it, I lost no time in availing 

 myself of his invitation, and a few days later, namely, on July 12th, 

 I found myself at Dumpton Park, standing under the very tree in 

 which the nest was placed. The reader may smile at the idea of 

 journeying from London to Ramsgate merely to look at a nest; but 

 if he be an ornithologist, he will know that golden orioles' nests 

 are not to be seen in this country every day, and that when found 

 they are worth " making a note of." Often as I had seen the bird 

 and its nest on the Continent, it had never been my good fortune 

 until last July to meet with it in England. Indeed, the instances 

 in which nests of the oriole have been found here and recorded are 

 so few that they may be easily enumerated. According to the 

 concise account given by Professor Newton in his new edition of 

 ' Yarrell's British Birds,' one was discovered in June, 1836, in an 

 ash plantation near Ord, from which the young were taken; but, 

 though every care was shown them, they did not long survive their 

 captivity. " Mr. J. B. Ellman says (Zool. 2496) that at the end of 

 May, 1849, a nest was, with the owners, obtained near Elmstone. 

 It was suspended from the extremity of the top branch of an oak, 

 was composed entirely of wool bound together with dried grass 

 and contained three eggs. Mr. Hulke in 1851 also recorded (Zool. 

 3034) a third, of which he was told that it was found about ten 

 years previously in Word Wood, near Sandwich, by a countryman, 

 who took the young and gave them to his ferrets; and Mr. More, 

 on the authority of Mr. Charles Gordon, mentions one at Elmstead, 

 adding that the bird appeared again in the same locality in 1861. 

 Mr. Howard Saunders and Lord Lilford informed the editor that in 

 the summer of 1871 they each observed, in Surrey and Northampton- 

 shire respectively, a bird of this species, which probably had a nest. 

 Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear speak of a nest said to have been 

 found in a garden near Ormsby, in Norfolk ; but the eggs formerly 

 in Mr. Scales's collection, which it has been thought were taken in 

 that county, were really brought from Holland, and the editor is 

 not aware of any collector who can boast the possession of eggs of 

 this species laid in Britain." 



The nest which I am now enabled to record was placed in a fork 

 of a very thin bough of an elm tree, at a considerable height from 

 the ground, and almost at the extremity of the branch, so that it was 

 impossible to reach it except by cutting off the branch near the 



