YELLOW OR ORANGE CONSPICUOUS 527 



naked pinky nestlings require all the care of both 

 parents. They are beauties, to the eyes of one who 

 loves bird babies, being perfect in form although so 

 tiny. Their eyes open in a few days, and feathers begin 

 to show along each side of the back and on the edges 

 of the elbows. In ten days they have begun to look 

 charniingly like their devoted mother, with coats of soft 

 olive and brown. It is exactly the right color for nest^ 

 lings, and when they have left the cradle and sit motion- 

 less for hours among the green leaves, they are invisible 

 to all eyes but those of the parents. 



Like the young of all seed-eating birds, they learn to 

 forage for themselves much sooner than do those whose 

 food requires skill to catch. Almost as soon as they 

 can balance themselves the Goldfinch babies cling to the 

 top of a thistle or a bunch of goldenrod, helping them- 

 selves to the seed as independently as any of the adults. 

 But when father or mother alights near, the little wings 

 begin to quiver and the bill opens expectantly, even 

 though the little crop be too full to hold more. 



Goldfinch nestlings, like very many others hitherto un- 

 suspected, are fed by regurgitation. The adult comes to 

 the nest with his crop conspicuously loaded, and soon 

 transfers the contents to the empty crops of tiie young, 

 which at once show the change. The food brought is 

 thistle seed from which tlie down has been carefully 

 plucked, leaving only ti»e small brown part. When full 

 of this the naked crops are distressingly suggestive of a 

 flaxseed poultice. 



