GOLDEN ORIOLE. 591 



apparently produced by prefixing or interluding its call-note. It is a pity 

 the song is so short ; for in quality it is scai'cely exceeded by the song of 

 any other bird. Naumann describes its ordinary call-note as a clear 

 (jyuke, yake, yake, and its alarm-note as a harsh khrr. 



The food of the Golden Oriole is principally insects ; but in autumn it 

 is very fond of fruit, especially cherries. 



The nest of the Golden Oriole is unlike that of any other European 

 bird. This wanderer from the tropics, the date of whose immigration into 

 the Palsearctic Region is probably comjiaratively recent, seems to have 

 retained his tropical habits of nest-building. The nest is perhaps more 

 curious than beautiful. It is most artistically made ; but the art is that of 

 the mechanical kind. The nest is always suspended from the fork of a 

 horizontal branch, sometimes of a pine tree, but generally of an oak, and 

 is usually placed from twenty to thirty feet above the ground. The out- 

 side is composed of broad sedges and strips of inner bark, which are wrapped 

 round the two branches forming the fork from which the nest is pendent. 

 I have generally found intertwined with these long narrow strips a few 

 withered leaves, and almost invariably a scrap or two of a Dutch newspaper. 

 The lining is composed of the slender round grass-stalks, very frequently 

 with the flower of the grass attached. It is said that the male relieves the 

 female in the duties of incubation, and drives off any intruder with great 

 daring. It has the general reputation of being a quarrelsome bird, and in 

 spring the males are often seen fighting either for the possession of the 

 females or for the range of some favourite plantation. Like the Jay, the 

 Golden Oriole has some peculiarities which are not altogether Corvine. 

 His flight is undulating, not straight ; and on the ground he hops, not 

 walks. 



A full clutch of eggs is usually four or five. They are creamy white in 

 ground-colour, sometimes with an almost imperceptible tinge of pink, 

 sparingly spotted with very dark purplish brown. The spots vary con- 

 siderably in size and shape, but are almost invariably well defined ; on 

 many specimens there are a few underlying spots of purplish grey. The 

 shell is somewhat rou^h in texture, but highly polished. They vary in 

 length from 1'35 to I'l inch, and in breadth from '93 to '8 inch. The 

 eggs of the Golden Oriole cannot be mistaken for those of any other 

 British bird. 



Dixon made the following notes on this bird : — " In Algeria the Golden 

 Oriole haunts the palm-studded oases, full of tropical verdure, equally as 

 much as the groves of timber on the sides of the noble Aures Mountains. 

 It is one of the shyest birds I know ; and usually the observer has to 

 content himself with a hurried glimpse of its beautiful plumage, as, like a 

 flash of burnished gold, the bird glistens in the bright sunlight a moment, 

 and then disappears in the gloom. At this time of the year (May) all 

 the Orioles seem in pairs, and fly from grove to grove in company. 



