Ornithological Notes. By George Bolam. 387 



Golden Oriole : Oriolus galhula, Linn. 

 A specimen of this beautiful bird was shot on 26th May, 1881, near 

 Middleton Hall, Belford, the seat of J. Towlerton Leather, Esq., in North- 

 umberland, and is now in my possession. It is in the full plumage of the 

 adult male. Though to the southern parts of the Island the golden oriole 

 is a somewhat regular summer visitant, stragglers appearing almost every 

 spring, and a few even remaining to breed in the north of England and 

 in Scotland it is a very rare bird, the only other Northumbrian example 

 having been recorded by Mr Selby, from Tynemouth so long ago as 1821. 



Red-breasted Flycatcher : Muscicapa parva, Bech. 



On the 5th of October, 1883, I was fortunate enough to shoot a specimen 

 of this interesting little flycatcher in our garden at Berwick. When I first 

 observed it fly across the garden and alight on some trees I was struck by 

 the large amount of white displayed in the tail and was thus led to suspect 

 that it was not a pied flycatcher, to which bird in other respects it was very 

 similar. It was afterwards seen busily engaged in feeding upon Aphides* 

 which were at the time very numerous and congregated upon the broad 

 leaves of a sycamore tree ; here again in its movements it showed a marked 

 resemblance to its congeners, but some slight differences were noticed ; 

 it several times ran, or rather hopped along a branch, or the top of a wall, 

 to secure some minute insect, and it was on the whole more restless and 

 less disposed to remain motionless than a pied flycatcher. 



On examination it proved to be a young male in the sombre brown of 

 the autumn plumage, and in colouring it agrees generally with the short 

 description given in the last edition of Yai-rell's British Birds. The ter- 

 tials are broadly margined and tipped with pale yellowish brown, and the 

 breast and under parts are more or less of a fine warm buff. The tail 

 which consists of twelve feathers is hair brown and white, the brown being 

 darkest on the middle feathers ; the first three pairs of quills from the 

 outside have the brown and white in nearly equal proportions ; the basal 

 halves being white, quite pure on the second and third pairs, bnt slightly 

 freckled with brown on the outer feathers. The fourth pair have the 

 outer web only white for about an inch near the middle, with a small por- 

 tion of the inner web, next to the shaft, of a like colour ; while on the 

 fifth pair from the outside the white is confined to a rather narrow margin 

 on a small portion of the outer web ; the sixth or centre pair are wholly 

 brown. In the 4th edition of Yarrell's British Birds above referred to, it 

 is stated that this species has only ten feathers in the tail, but Professor 

 Newton informs me that since he wrote the account for that work he has 

 found that specimens are met with having twelve feathers ; and Mr John 

 Hancock, to whom I have on many previous occasions been much indebted 

 for useful information, at all times most kindly given, tells me that ho 

 finds, by examination of a large series of specimens in his collection, that 

 twelve is the normal number of tail feathers, in if. parva, and that the only 

 specimen he has which has ten feathers, has evidently lost two. Twelve 

 would therefore seem to be the Lumber of tail feathers in this species, and 

 unless abnormally that number probably never varies. 



The red-breasted flycatcher has only been obtained in England upon 



