this work, has passed with the rest of his collection to the
Museum of Eton College. But there is no need to enumerate
the various examples of this species which have been
obtained in England, for, as has been said, 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 ; and the stupid practice of almost
invariably destroying on their arrival these birds, some of
which would doubtless, if undisturbed, breed as freely in our
woods and orchards as they do on the continent, is a matter
of deep regret to every right-thinking ornithologist. It
must not however he supposed that this happy result would
invariably follow upon protection being accorded to the
Golden Oriole, for in some of the rare cases in which the
birds have been unmolested, or even pains taken to preserve
them, they have disappeared after a short sojourn. In
Scilly, where the species has perhaps been more often
observed and less frequently disturbed than in any part of
the British Islands, suitable haunts are obviously wanting;
but there are other places where no such cause can be
assigned for their not stopping, and it would seem that
though willing to make a temporary resting place, the
migratory impulse is not fully expended, and they strive to
reach some more distant quarters. In Dorsetshire Mr.
Octavius Pickard-Cambridge writes (Zool. p. 4366) that a
male bird was constantly seen in a garden at Bloxworth for
more than a week in May, 1854, and though a large extent
of woodland and orchard adjoins the place, yet nothing
came of it. Some nests however are reported to have been
found, and especially in Kent. Thus Mr. J . Pemberton
Bartlett states (Zool. p. 824) that in June, 1836, one was
discovered in an ash-plantation near Ord, from which the
young were taken ; but, though every care was shewn them,
they did not long survive their captivity. Mr. J. B. Ellman
says (Zool. p. 2496) that at the end of May, 1849, a nest was,
with the owners, obtained near Elmstone. I t was suspended
from the extremity of the top branch of an oak, was composed
entirely of wool, bound together with dried grass, and
contained three eggs. Mr. Hulke, in 1851, also recorded
(Zool. p. 3034) a third, of which he was told that it was
found about ten years previously in Word Wood near
Sandwich by a countryman who took the young and gave
them to his ferrets; and Mr. More, on the authority of Mr.
Charles Gordon, mentions one at Elmstead, adding that the
bird appeared again in the same locality in 1861. Mr.
Howard Saunders and Lord Lilford have informed the
Editor that, in the past summer of 1871, they each observed,
in Surrey and Northamptonshire respectively, a bird of this
species which probably had a nest. Messrs. Sheppard and
Whitear speak of a nest said to have been found in a
garden near Ormsby in Norfolk; but the eggs formerly in
Mr. Scales’s collection, which it has been thought were
taken in that county, were really brought from Holland, and
the Editor is not aware of any collector who can boast the
possession of eggs of this species laid in Britain.
In Ireland, according to Thompson this species has been
obtained or observed in the counties of Kerry, Cork, Waterford,
Wexford, Wicklow and Down, all it may be remarked
in the south or east of the island, while April 1870, as
recorded by Mr. W. A. Hackett (Zool. s.s. p. 2222), was
particularly distinguished by the visit of several of these
birds to the county Cork. Mr. Robert Gray mentions one
killed in June 1868 in the Isle of Man, and that as regards
Scotland, it has occurred in the Isle of Arran, on the west,
and on the east in Berwickshire, near Edinburgh, and in the
counties of Fife and Ross.
In Germany, Holland and France, and generally over the
continent of Europe, this bird is not uncommon. The most
northern limit which seems to have been recorded for its
occurrence is the north coast of Iceland, where according to
information supplied to Dr. Kjserbolling one was found dead
in December, 1843—the season of the year intimating