154 MERULID.E. 



the species in his Birds of Africa, vol. iii. p. 46. pi. 107 (Paris 

 1802), under the name of Le Cudor, stating that it was dis- 

 covered on the banks of the Groot-vis, a river of the Caffre country : 

 little more is yet known respecting it. A. figure, taken from the 

 specimen here noticed, has appeared in the 2nd edition of Yar- 

 relTs British Birds, and in the Supplementary part to the 1st 

 edition of the same work. 



Mr. E. Ball of Dublin informed me in October, 1845, that 

 three birds of a very nearly allied species, brought from Palestine 

 — and called Palestine Nightingales — had been obtained for the 

 aviary of the Zoological Garden, Phoenix Park. They were more 

 of a slate-colour than the species under consideration. 



GOLDEN OEIOLE. 



Oriolus gall/ula, Linn r 



This beautiful species — unlike a native of our clime — is 

 but an occasional summer visitant. 



A bird described to Mr. E. J Jail to have been the size of a thrush, 

 and in colour, bright-yellow and black, frequented a garden be- 

 tween Middleton and Castlemartyr (county of Cork),' 55 ' for some 

 months in the summer of 1817 (?) : he had no doubt of its having 

 been a golden oriole. In the 1st volume of the Zoological Jour- 

 nal (p. 590), one of these birds stated to have been shot in 

 the county of Wexford, m May, 1823, is said to be preserved 

 in the Museum of the Eoyal ] )ublin Society. In the Fauna of 

 Cork (1845), we are told that " one was sent to the Institution 

 in 1823 by Lord Bantry :" this is, I presume, the same individual 

 that Mr. Eichard Dowden told me in 1838, had been sent some 

 years before that period to the Institution alluded to. It came 

 under his notice in a fresh state ; and had 1 ieen shot at Lord 

 Pantry's seat, near the town of Bantry, in the county of Cork. 

 On the 11th of May, 1824, a female of tliis species was shot by 

 a gentleman of my acquaintance near Donaghadee, in the county 



* This is the specimen alluded to in the Fauna of Cork as from Castlemartyr. 



