350 SINGING BIRDS. 



make peace, others amused by the fray, all uttering loud and 

 discordant chirpings. One of their most common whining 

 calls while engaged in collecting seeds in gardens, where they 

 seem to be sensible of their delinquency, is ^mdy be, ''may be. 

 They have also a common cry like 'tsheveet 'tshevee, uttered in 

 a slender, complaining accent. These and some other twitter- 

 ing notes are frequently uttered at every impulse while pursu- 

 ing their desultory waving flight, rising and falling as they shut 

 or expand their laboring wings. They are partial to gardens 

 and domestic premises in the latter end of summer and 

 autumn, collecting oily seeds of various kinds and shelling 

 them with great address and familiarity, if undisturbed often 

 hanging and moving about head downwards, to suit their con- 

 venience while thus busily and craftily employed. They have 

 a particular fondness for thistle seeds, spreading the down in 

 clouds around them, and at this time feeding very silently and 

 intently ; nor are they very easily disturbed while thus engaged 

 in the useful labor of destroying the germs of these noxious 

 weeds. They do some damage occasionally in gardens by 

 their indiscriminate destruction of lettuce and flower seeds, 

 and are therefore often disliked by gardeners ; but their use- 

 fulness in other respects far counterbalances the trifling inju- 

 ries they produce. They are very fond, also, of washing and 

 bathing themselves in mild weather; and as well as tender 

 buds of trees they sometimes collect the Confervas of springs 

 and brooks as a variety to their usual fare. 



They raise sometimes two broods in the season, as their 

 nests are found from the first week in July to the middle of 

 September. In 1831 I examined several nests, and from the 

 late period at which they begin to breed it is impossible that 

 they can ever act in the capacity of nurses to the Cow 

 Troopial. This procrastination appears to be occasioned by 

 the lack of sufficiently nutritive diet, the seeds on which they 

 principally feed not ripening usually before July. 



Note. — The Black-headed Goldfinch {Spinus noiaius), 

 a Mexican bird, is credited with an accidental occurrence in 

 Kentucky. 



