BIRDS

OF

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

ORDER PASSERES

FAMILY ORIOLIDA.

THIS family consists of a tropical group of brightly coloured birds in which
yellow and black, or scarlet and black, are the prevailing hues. Although
in the general form of their heads they somewhat remind one of Starlings,
they must not be confounded with the so-called "Orioles" of the New World,
which belong to the family Icterida or Hang-nests and Troupials, a group of birds
linking the Finches and the Starlings, and feeding largely upon seeds and insects.

The late Henry Seebohm was of opinion that the Orioles were nearly related
to the Crows; he, therefore, placed the genus Oriolus in his Subfamily Corvina, from
which he said that they chiefly differed in their exposed nostrils, although he
admitted that the tarsus might perhaps be slightly shorter, and the prevailing
colours different; whilst the sexes also were dissimilar.*

In addition to the above distinctive characters, the third primary of the wing
(not the fourth or fifth) appears to be the longest, in the Orioles; whilst the
