WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 193 



and lowly should come so near to human senti- 

 ment and virtue, let such not be too hasty with 

 their dissent. Surely they may in reason wait 

 till they can point to at least one country where 

 the men are as universally faithful to their 

 wives and children as the birds are to theirs. 



The red-poll linnets, as I have said, are ir- 

 regular visitors in this region ; several years 

 may pass, and not one be seen ; but the gold- 

 finch we have with us always. Easily recog- 

 nized as he is, there are many well-educated 

 New-Englanders, I fear, who do not know him, 

 even by sight ; yet when that distinguished 

 ornithologist, the Duke of Argyll, comes to 

 publish his impressions of this country, he avers 

 that he has been hardly more interested in the 

 " glories of Niagara " than in this same little 

 yellow-bird, which he saw for the first time 

 while looking from his hotel window at the 

 great cataract. " A golden finch, indeed ! " he 

 exclaims. Such a tribute as this from the pen 

 of a British nobleman ought to give Astragali- 

 nus tristis immediate entrance into the very 

 best of American society. 



It is common to say that the goldfinches wan- 

 der about the country during the winter. Un- 

 doubtedly this is true in a measure ; but I have 

 seen things which lead me to suspect that the 

 statement is sometimes made too sweeping. 



13 



