Chapter XIV. 



ORIOLES AND ROLLERS. 



Amongst the most gorgeous of our summer visitors are 

 the golden orioles. Their family contains allied species, 

 but as these are less well known to the general public they 

 may well be left to the student. Known in Europe as Oriolus 

 galbula, the golden oriole is variously described bj' Asiatic 

 ornithologists as O. Indiciis, O. Cochiiichinensis, or as 0. 

 Chineiisis simply. Fortunately', ugly names cannot affect 

 either the grace of his form, the glory of his colour, or the 

 purit}' of his voice. He comes to us, according as our spring 

 is early or late, either towards the end of April or the 

 beginning of May. It was on the 5th May that I first heard 

 hischeerjmotes this j'ear.Heloves to make known hispresence 

 in the early morning. For once that j^ou see him you may 

 hear, him a hundred times for, as a rule, he does not care to 

 expose himself to the vulgar gaze. In some parts of the 

 world he is so shy as to avoid situations near the abodes of 

 man, and it is, perhaps, only because the Chinese are, as a 

 rule, not given to the persecution of birds, that we are in- 

 debted for the honour of having the golden oriole in our 

 shrubberies and gardens. He is a bird of the trees and, so 

 far as my own personal experience is concerned, I do not 

 remember ever having seen him on the ground, though in 

 his search for insects he probably does come down at times. 



There is good reason wh\' the oriole keeps to cover as 

 much as possible. He has enemies to whom his bright yel- 

 lowtintswouldbetrayhimeasily in the open. The consequence 

 is that whenever he is seen away from his loved foliage, it is 

 when crossing from one piece of cover to another. Then 

 when the sun is shining his passage, if it can be taken in 

 one short dash, is like the track of a golden meteor, a flash 

 of aureate light, and nothing more. What is astonishing to 

 the onlooker, who sees this for the first time, is the utter 

 absorption of it in the leafage which is its goal. What was 

 so clearly conspicuous an instant before has vanished! The 

 tree has swallowed it up. A little experience shows how this 

 comes about. In the strong lights of tropical and sub-tropical 

 lands, many leaves reflect a golden tinge which agrees very 

 closely with the colour of the oriole. Other trees are never 



