CHAPTER XLIV 



THE GOOL-FINCH OR COOLER 



This sweet song-bird is a lover of the ripe yellow wheat 

 upon which the blue lies like bloom upon a plum. And 

 lover of corn though he be, he is dainty, and separates the 

 wheat from the chaff; indeed, his sharp-pointed little bill 

 seems adapted to this end. He is no glutton like the 

 sparrow, who bolts his grain. 



You may hear the cock-bird singing his sweet song on a 

 still fine day in the middle of April ; and if 3^ou stop and 

 listen, perchance you will see his yellow body shining between 

 the new glossy hawthorn leaves ; though he is sure to be 

 sitting on a spray clear of leaves, a beautiful yellow spot with 

 dark pencilHngs against the azure. And when you hear the 

 sweet bunting song, recalling the music of the land-bunting, 

 you will sink down in the hedge and listen with parted lips, 

 for it is music of contentment, filling you with quiet charm. 



And a little later, when the irises begin to decorate the 

 dikes with the curved scimitar-like leaves, you may see a 

 pair of birds dragging yellow wheat-straws, sere rushes, 

 dead grass, and horse-hairs to some clump of bramble on a 

 grassy dike-side, and if you search you will see the care- 

 lessly-fashioned nest, betrayed by a fringe of straw ; and if 

 perchance you walk that way again, you will see the four or 

 five mottled eggs lying cosily on the horse-hair, and you may 

 know that since that bird has begun so early to raise her 

 brood, she will have three or four families that season if all 

 goes well. And should the eggs be robbed by the village 

 urchin, five or six nests will be built, but the eggs dwindle 

 in number, and in the yellow harvest-time you may find 



