66 BRITISH BIRDS. 



over to the British shores ; but the foreign Larks rarely remain with us or 

 pair with the Britishers. The MeruUda do not require any sanitary act of 

 Parliament to preserve their dwellings clean. Blackbirds swallow the 

 droppings of their young and keep their abode free. On May 24, 1862, I 

 found a nest of Turclus musicus (Thrush) with one addled egg. The birds 

 had flown ; and the nest was half full of the stones of the ivy-berry, which had 

 been the food of the young. It is probable that these stones had all passed 

 through the young; but, being in their nature clean, they were not taken away 

 by the old birds. Mr. Henry Stevenson, in his ' Birds of Norfolk,' vol. ii. 

 p. 275, records " the large flights of Blackbirds that make their appearance 

 on our coast in October, so regularly that the gunners are accustomed to 

 search for Woodcocks when the Blackbirds are over." Mr. John Cordeaux, 

 in his ' Birds of the Humber District/ p. 24, says, " in October I have some- 

 times found our marsh hedgerows near the coast literally sw^arming with 

 Blackbirds, where the day previously scarcely one could have been found." 



ORIOLUS GALBULA, Linn. 



(Golden Oriole.) 



April 20, 1872, saw a cock bird in fine plumage which had been shot at 

 Shoreham the day before. Mr. J. G. Keulemans writes to the ' Field ' of 

 Oct. 31, 1874, thus: — "The Baltimore and other Hang-nests, probably on 

 account of their black and yellow plumage, are usually named Orioles ;" 

 these, however, " may be easily recognized by the invariably dark red eye, 

 which in all the Icteri is yellow. Orioles have short legs, long wings, and 

 a broad Thrush-like bill ; Hang-nests have the tarsus as long as a Song- 

 Thrush, and stand high upon their legs ; their wings are comparatively 

 short ; and their bill is Starling-hke and sharp-pointed. Orioles are lazy, 



