2 
Adult Female (Piedmont, May). Differs considerably from the male; upper parts (excepting the wings) 
greenish yellow or apple-green, the patch in front of the eye dull brownish black; wings as in the male, 
but duller and browner, the edgings being pale sulphur-yellow; secondaries and wing-coverts washed 
with dull greenish yellow; tail as in the male, except that the yellow markings are only on the inner 
webs, the outer webs of the feathers being blackish; underparts white, on the lower throat, breast, and 
flanks washed with bright yellow, the vent and under tail-coverts being entirely yellow; throat, breast, 
and flanks more or less distinctly streaked with blackish brown. 
‘oung Male. Closely resembles the female, but is only a little more yellow in tinge of plumage. 
Nestling (Belgium). Upper parts greyish, tipped with yellow; underparts, where the feathers have grown, 
white, tinged with yellow and finely streaked with blackish; the short wings and tail have much the 
same character as those of the adult, but the quills are edged and tipped with yellowish. 
Obs. In the series I have examined I find scarcely any seasonal variation in the colour of the old birds, as 
an old male shot on the 4th September is as richly coloured as any I have. The moult appears to take 
place in August, and therefore this bird would be in full plumage. The young male appears to take at 
least two years before it attains the full adult livery, and it is therefore to be found in all stages 
between that and the plumage of the female, which it wears in its first year. A very old female in 
Captain Shelley’s collection has the entire underparts yellow, almost as rich in colour as in the male, 
but streaked with blackish, and the upper parts are coloured as in ordinary adult females. 
TuHE richly coloured European Oriole inhabits Central and Southern Europe generally, being but 
a rare straggler to Northern Europe. Eastward it occurs as far as Turkestan, and in Africa it 
has been met with as far south as Damara Land and Natal. 
With us in Great Britain it is a rare straggler; and though it is stated to have bred in 
England on several occasions, it must be looked on as being one of our rarer visitants. Professor 
Newton (Yarr. Brit. B. ed. 4, i. p. 236) says that “it appears almost every spring in the southern 
and eastern counties, from Cornwall to Norfolk—and especially often in the first and last of them, 
Sussex, Kent, and Suffolk being the next in order of abundance. In the west of England it has 
occurred by forty at a time; but most generally it appears in pairs, though the female, from her 
less conspicuous plumage, often escapes observation.” Mr. Gatcombe informs me that it is said 
to have occurred in the Saltram woods, the seat of the Earl of Morley, near Plymouth, and a 
very fine old female in his possession was killed at Millbrook, near Mount Edgcumbe; and 
Mr. Cecil Smith speaks of it as being an occasional visitor to Somersetshire, but he does not 
know that-it has ever attempted to breed there. Mr. Stevenson records numerous instances of 
its occurrence in Norfolk; but in the north of England its occurrences are rarer, and in Scotland 
it has only been met with on a few occasions. Dr. Fleming first records it, a specimen having, 
he says, been obtained on the island of Arran in 1807; a second was taken near Edinburgh; and 
a third was obtained in Berwickshire. Mr. Robert Gray mentions that a specimen was shot near 
Kirkaldy on the 22nd April, 1870, and another late in March at Loch Torridon, in Ross-shire. 
He also states that an example was shot in the Isle of Man in June 1868. In Iveland it has, 
according to Thompson, been recorded from Kerry, Cork, Waterford, Wexford, Wicklow, and 
Down; and Mr. W. A. Hackett records the occurrence of several specimens in the county Cork 
in April 1870. It is stated to have bred in various parts of the south of England; and I cannot 
