GOLDEN ORIOLE. 
103 
racter of a rare straggler, seen generally in spring 
or autumn, as if the birds had been driven, or 
had wandered from the regular course of their 
migration ; one or two instances only are 
mentioned of their having bred in this country, 
which may have taken place under circumstances 
entirely fortuitous. During summer, the south 
of Europe seems to be the stronghold of this 
beautiful species, straggling northward to Great 
Britain and as far as Sweden, abounding during 
the season of incubation in the islands of the 
Mediterranean, where they assemble in their 
passage from Northern Africa, but how far they 
extend on that continent, or how far they pass 
the Asiatic line, we do not know. The species 
so frequently received from the Continent and 
islands of India is distinct, and so also is that 
from Southern and Western Africa ; in both, the 
black between the rictus and the eye passes 
through it over the auriculars, as we have endea- 
voured to represent in a woodcut of O. bicolor , 
in the opposite page. In our British bird it 
stretches only to the eye. 
The nest has been stated by some writers to 
be of a lengthened and suspended structure, but 
there seems to have been a good deal of uncer- 
tainty regarding this point, although in France 
there appears no great difficulty in procuring the 
eggs. From the vignette given by Mr Yarrell,* 
drawn from a nest in the collection of the Zoolo- 
gical Society, it is of the ordinary round shape, 
* History of British Birds. 
