Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/178

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
154
merulidæ.

the species in his Birds of Africa, vol. iii. p. 46. pi. 107 (Paris 1802), under the name of Le Cudor, stating that it was dis- covered on the banks of the Groot-vis, a river of the Caffre country : little more is yet known respecting it. A. figure, taken from the specimen here noticed, has appeared in the 2nd edition of Yar- relTs British Birds, and in the Supplementary part to the 1st edition of the same work.

Mr. E. Ball of Dublin informed me in October, 1845, that three birds of a very nearly allied species, brought from Palestine — and called Palestine Nightingales — had been obtained for the aviary of the Zoological Garden, Phoenix Park. They were more of a slate-colour than the species under consideration.

GOLDEN ORIOLE.

Oriolus gallula, Linn.

This beautiful species — unlike a native of our clime — is but an occasional summer visitant.

A bird described to Mr. R. Ball to have been the size of a thrush, and in colour, bright-yellow and black, frequented a garden be- tween Middleton and Castlemartyr (county of Cork),' 55 ' for some months in the summer of 1817 (?) : he had no doubt of its having been a golden oriole. In the 1st volume of the Zoological Jour- nal (p. 590), one of these birds stated to have been shot in the county of Wexford, in May, 1823, is said to be preserved in the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society. In the Fauna of Cork (1845), we are told that "one was sent to the Institution in 1823 by Lord Bantry :" this is, I presume, the same individual that Mr. Richard Dowden told me in 1838, had been sent some years before that period to the Institution alluded to. It came under his notice in a fresh state ; and had 1 ieen shot at Lord Pantry's seat, near the town of Bantry, in the county of Cork. On the 11th of May, 1824, a female of tliis species was shot by a gentleman of my acquaintance near Donaghadee, in the county


This is the specimen alluded to in the Fauna of Cork as from Castlemartyr.