GOLDEN ORIOLE. 229 
small flocks, fly well, and frequent high trees, among the 
foliage of which they seek for caterpillars, soft insects, and 
fruits. 
The Golden Oriole is the only European species of the 
genus, and its nest is very different in shape from those of 
some of its foreign congeners, which are elongated, purse- 
hike, and pendant. The nest of the Golden Oriole is rather 
flat and saucer-shaped, generally placed in the horizontal 
fork of a bough of a tree, to both branches of which it is 
firmly attached. The materials used to form the nest are 
sheep’s wool and long slender stems of grass, which are so 
curiously interwoven as mutually to confine and sustain 
each other. The vignette at the end of this article re- 
presents a nest of this bird, taken, by permission, from a 
specimen presented to the Zoological Society by Professor 
Passerini of Florence. Another nest of this bird, exactly 
resembling the one just referred to in form, materials, and 
structure, is represented by Mr. Meyer in his “ Illustra- 
tions of British Birds,” from a nest taken in Suffolk ; and 
I have been told that Mr. Scales of Beecham Well had 
eggs of the Golden Oriole in his collection which had been 
taken in Norfolk. The eggs are usually four or five in 
number, one inch two lines long, and ten lines in breadth, 
of a white colour slightly tinged with purple, and with a 
few distinct spots of ash-grey and claret colour. The 
female is said to be so tenacious of her eggs as to suffer 
herself to be taken with the nest. A writer in the Natu- 
ralist mentions having seen a pair of young birds in nearly 
full plumage exhibited for sale in the public market at 
Cologne, for which he was asked the moderate sum of 
three shillings. Bechstein says that the parent birds rear 
but one brood in a season; which helps to account for the 
scarcity of this very handsome bird. The food of this 
