Like the Hoopoe, the Golden Oriole makes its annual visit to the European continent from the countries south of the Mediterranean, in the month of April, and returns in September. In the interval it may be found not uncommonly in the wooded parts of Central and Southern Europe; but it is rare in the north, being seldom seen in Sweden, and unknown in Norway.

In England, where it may be regarded as an irregular summer migrant, it unfortunately meets with little or no protection, for its bright colours at once attract attention, and many get shot before they have been a week on our shores. The male bird is bright yellow, with black wings and a black and yellow tail. The female is dull green, with pitch-brown wings, the upper tail coverts greenish yellow, and the under parts greyish white, longitudinally streaked with brown on the shafts of the feathers; the flanks yellow, and streaked in the same way.

My impressions on meeting with Golden Orioles for the first time in France, now many years ago, will not be easily forgotten. I wanted to see them alive, hear their notes, shoot two or three to examine them closely, and ascertain the nature of their food; and accordingly I accepted the invitation of a friend and took up my quarters at an old country house, about halfway between Paris and Orleans. On looking over my note-book for that particular year, I find the following entry, relating to the Golden Oriole:—

“Long before six in the morning I was awakened by a perfect chorus of birds—Blackcap, Nightingale, Thrush, Wood Pigeon, Chaffinch, Starling, and Magpie were all recognized; but what pleased me above all, was a beautiful mellow whistle, which I took to be that of the Golden Oriole, and in less than an hour afterwards I found that I was right in my surmise, for on walking through the woods which flank one side of the house, I had the pleasure of seeing for the first time alive several of these beautiful birds. They were very shy, and kept to the tops of the oak trees; but by proceeding cautiously I managed to get near enough to see and hear them well. Their note is really splendid, so mellow, loud, and clear—something of the Blackbird’s tone about it, but yet very different; while in their mode of flight and perching they remind one of a Thrush. After a long search, I at length found a nest, placed at the extremity of a thin bough, and at the top of an oak tree, about sixty feet up. There were no branches for more than thirty feet, and it would have been almost impossible to reach it without assistance. I therefore marked the spot, and determined to get a long ladder a little later and try and take it. The keeper informed me that it was early yet for Orioles’ eggs, and so I left the nest for the last day of my stay here. In the afternoon I went with the keeper to the Parc de Marolles. We could hear the Orioles, or Loriots, as the French call them from their notes, singing loudly in the recesses of the woods; but the foliage was so thick, and they kept so much to the tops of the trees, that it was almost impossible to catch sight of them. Their greenish-yellow feathers, too, harmonized so well with the leaves, that it rendered them still more difficult to see.

“Following the direction of the notes, I continued to make my way through the underwood as noiselessly as possible, peering through the branches, and striving in vain to catch sight of a bird. For a long time the sound seemed to be as far away as ever, or, as I advanced it receded. The sun was broiling hot, and the exertion of forcing my way through the underwood, and straining my neck forward in my endeavours to get a sight of the bird, put me in a profuse perspiration. The result of about three hours’ work was, that I finally succeeded in getting three shots at long intervals, and secured a pair of Orioles, a young male and an old female. Subsequently, however, I got others. I found the stomachs of these birds crammed with caterpillars of various species, and can well understand the good they do in young plantations, by ridding the trees of these pests.

“The colours of the soft parts in these birds, as noted by me at the time, were as follows:—Iris, reddish hazel; bill, brownish flesh colour; legs and toes, pale lead colour.

“On June 3rd, after breakfast, I went to the wood near the house to take a Golden Oriole’s nest, and a difficult matter it was. The nest was placed in a slender fork at the extremity of a thin bough of an oak tree, and almost at the top.

“The oaks here are not, as in England, sturdy and short, with wide-spreading heads, but tall and slender, running up for a great height without any branches, and very tiring to climb. I was obliged to saw off the branch before I could look into the nest, and after a great deal of trouble, when I at length got it down safely, I found, to my disappointment, that it contained three young birds instead of eggs. Could I have ascertained this without cutting off the branch, I should certainly have left them where they were; as it was, there was no help for it but to take them. They were apparently about three days old, and almost naked, the skin of an orange or yellowish flesh-colour very sparsely flecked with yellow down. I fed them on maggots, and covered them with cotton wool to keep them warm, and in this way I kept them alive until I reached Paris, where they died, and were entrusted to a skilful taxidermist for preservation.”

Although the discovery of a Golden Oriole’s nest in England is not unprecedented, it is of sufficiently rare occurrence to attract the attention of naturalists, more especially when the finder (as in the case to which I am about to allude) has the humanity and good sense to permit the young to be reared, instead of shooting the parent birds the moment they are discovered, and thus effectually putting a stop to all attempts at nidification.

It is a pleasure to be able to record the fact, that during the summer of 1874, a pair of Golden Orioles took up their quarters in Dumpton Park, Isle of Thanet, where—the proprietor, Mr. Bankes Tomlin, having given strict injunctions that they should not be disturbed—they built a nest, and successfully reared their young, ultimately leading them away in safety.

They must have commenced building somewhat later than usual, for it was not until the 6th of July that I first heard of the nest, and the young were then just hatched. Mr. Bankes Tomlin having kindly invited me to come and see it, I lost no time in availing myself of his invitation, and a few days later, namely, on July 12th, I found myself at Dumpton Park, standing under the very tree in which the nest was placed. The reader may smile at the idea of journeying from London to Ramsgate merely to look at a nest; but if he be an ornithologist, he will know that Golden Orioles’ nests are not to be seen in this country every day, and that when found they are worth “making a note of.” Often as I had seen the bird and its nest on the Continent, it had never been my good fortune until then to meet with it in England. Indeed, the instances in which nests of the Oriole have been found here and recorded are so few that they may be easily enumerated. According to the concise account given by Professor Newton in his new edition of “Yarrell’s British Birds,” one was discovered in June, 1836, in an ash plantation near Ord, from which the young were taken; but, though every care was shown them, they did not long survive their captivity. “Mr. J. B. Ellman says (‘Zoologist,’ p. 2496) that at the end of May, 1849, a nest was, with the owners, obtained near Elmstone. It 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 (“Zoologist,’ 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 informed the editor that in the 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.”

The nest which I am now enabled to record was placed in a fork of a very thin bough of an elm tree, at a considerable height from the ground, and almost at the extremity of the branch, so that it was impossible to reach it except by cutting off the branch near the trunk. Happily, in this case there was no need to reach it, and the finder was enabled to ascertain when the young were hatched by sending a man up the tree high enough to look into the nest without disturbing it. A few days before his first ascent there had been a strong wind blowing for some time, and the slender branch was swayed to and fro to such an extent, that, notwithstanding the depth of the saucer-like nest, one of the eggs was jerked out upon the grass below and broken, though not irreparably so. When I saw it, it was in two pieces, but unmistakably the egg of an Oriole—in size equal to that of a Blackbird, but shining white, with black or rather dark claret-coloured spots at the larger end. It has been carefully preserved by Mr. Tomlin.

As long as his man remained in the tree the hen bird continued to fly round, uttering at intervals a loud flute-like note, and occasionally making a curious noise, such as a cat makes when angry.

It is perhaps scarcely necessary to remark that, as regards situation, form, and the materials of which it was composed, the nest did not differ from those which one is accustomed to see on the Continent. Invariably placed in, and suspended under, the fork of a horizontal bough, the sides of the nest are firmly bound to each branch of the fork with blades of dry grasses and fibrous roots. There is generally a good deal of sheep’s wool in the nest itself, which, taken in connection with its peculiar shape, gives it a very singular and unique appearance.

On the 12th of July, as we approached the nest in question, the hen bird was sitting, but left as we advanced, and perched in a neighbouring elm, whence at intervals she uttered the peculiar noise to which I have referred. Not wishing to keep her too long from her young, we left the spot in about ten minutes, after carefully inspecting the nest with a binocular. Returning again in half-an-hour, and a third time two or three hours later, we saw the hen on each occasion quit the nest and take up her position, as before, at a little distance. Once only did I catch a glimpse of her more brightly-coloured mate as he darted between two trees. He was very shy, and silent too, being seldom heard, except very early in the morning, or at twilight. This, however, is the case with most song-birds after the young are hatched, for they are then so busy providing food for the little mouths that they have scarcely time to sit and sing. Mr. Tomlin, who had other and better opportunities for observing him, gave me to understand that he was not in the fully adult plumage,[113] so that it seems the males of this species breed before they have assumed their beautiful black and yellow colours.

On the 22nd of July the man again ascended the tree and peeped into the nest. The young had flown, but were subsequently discovered sitting about in the park with the old birds. As soon as the nest was no longer wanted, Mr. Tomlin had the branch which supported it cut off, and, writing to me on the subject the following day, he observed, that “upon examining the nest we found the corners tightly bound with long pieces of matting. One would almost imagine that a basketmaker had been at work.”

Both the old and young birds continued to haunt the park until the 1st of August, after which date they were no longer seen. The young were, however, well feathered by that time, and able to take care of themselves. Let us hope that they contrived to escape the eyes of prowling gunners beyond the park, and that they will return again in succeeding years to gladden the eyes and ears of their kind protector.

It is much to be wished that other proprietors would follow the good example thus set by Mr. Bankes Tomlin. Could they be induced to do so, they would become acquainted with many beautiful birds which visit us from the Continent every spring, and which would in most cases rear their young here if allowed to remain unmolested. Apart from the gratification to be derived from seeing these brightly-coloured birds within view of the windows, and hearing their mellow flute-like notes, they would be found to be most useful allies to the gardener in ridding the trees of caterpillars, which they devour greedily, and keeping many other noxious insects in check.