X. — Natural History. — Notes on the Ornithology of Cornwall for 

 the year 1865-6. — By ^. Hearle Rodd. 



Read at the Spring Meeting, May 25, 1866, 



WE have had some interesting occurrences, in the past year, of 

 rare British Birds, worthy of notice in your Society's records 

 in this department of the Zoology of the County. 



Shortly after your last anniversary, I received information that 

 the gardens of Trescoe Abbey, Scilly, held more than one specunen 

 of that beautiful bird, " The Golden Oriole," which had on several 

 occasions been seen singly in the same locality during the last few 

 years. No fewer than three specimens were obtained within a few 

 days of each other, and each specimen shewed a different state of 

 plumage. The first specimen sent over was a male bird in nearly 

 adult plumage ; that is, with a deeper and less bright tint of yellow 

 than in a perfectly adult bird, on which the yellow is of an unsul- 

 lied brightness. The female has, as a substitute for this bright- 

 yellow portion of plumage, a greenish brown, -with a slight mixture 

 of yellow on the tail coverts. The other sjDecimen, a male, and of 

 more immature plumage, had a stronger mixture of greenish 

 yellow, but without any attractive intenseness. Comparing then 

 these specimens >vith the one which I had, some years since, from 

 St. Buryan, which exhibits an unsullied, uniform blaze of yellow, 

 we may conclude that this species possesses at least four gradations 

 of the dominant colour. 



There was another Oriole in the Abbey Garden, in fine 

 plumage ; but it escaped. 



A few weeks since, the Reverend G. Hadow informed me that 

 he had observed a lovely specimen of this bird, in apparently 

 perfect plumage, flying about his Vicarage Garden, at St. Just in 

 Penwith ; but it disappeared after having been buff'eted l^y a 

 magpie. 



