EUROPEAN GOLDFINCH 391 



The male was never seen to pay any particular attention to the nest. 

 He usually left mimediately after feedmg the female or young, and he 

 disappeared entirely from the vicinity at sunset. The four of five 

 males in the Massapequa colony in 1943 seemed to maintain contact 

 with each other and, after singing on the wires at sunset, usually 

 flew together into a grove of large trees, apparently for the night. 



As with most carduelines, the European goldfinch pays little 

 attention to nest sanitation. During incubation, however, the female 

 never fouled the nest with her own excrement, and she apparently 

 removed the egg shells after hatching, because I never found a trace 

 of them in the nest. The rim of one nest showed but a single deposit 

 of excreta 6 days after the fh-st young hatched, but by the eighth day 

 it was fairly well encrusted, and heavily so by the time the young 

 flew. In the arborvitae nest thick excrement coated the fohage 

 several feet below the nest by the time it was deserted. 



The largest number of young known to leave the nest successfully 

 at Massapequa was four. In two nestings two of the five young disap- 

 peared from the gray ball of fluff that filled the nest cup about 10 days 

 after hatching. The remaining three, of fairly equal size, soon filled 

 the nest and showed no desu-e to leave it 17 days after the first young 

 hatched. At this time the parents apparently tried to induce them 

 to fly by backing away to coax them out. Though they leaned far 

 forward from the precariously tilted, rain-weakened platform, which 

 had lost most of its semblance to a nest, the three fledglings did not 

 foUow. That night during a heavy rain storm one feU out, and I 

 found it dead on the ground below the next morning. The other two 

 left the next day, 18 days after the first young hatched, or 16 days 

 after the last one. Another time my plucking a conspicuous excreta- 

 stained shoot from the foot of the nest tree shook it slightly and sent 

 the three young flying off in different directions. One I retrieved and 

 replaced in the nest was gone again within 24 hours. 



Adults may continue to feed the young for an indefinite period 

 after they leave the nest. I saw three young being fed out of the nest 

 by one of their parents as late as August 26. The three juveniles, 

 weU grown and apparently out of the nest for some time, sat in the top 

 of a maple in a small grove as twilight was faUing. The parent 

 regurgitated into the open gapes of the begging young, and then roosted 

 on a branch above them. As darkness fell they aU tacked their heads 

 behind their wings and settled down for the night. 



Plumages. — At hatching the almost naked young are yeUowish-tan 

 and are soon tufted with grayish down. By the time the first-hatched 

 young are 6 days old, the nest cup appears about half fiUed with gray 

 fluff out of which, when approached, the yellow-rimmed gapes are 

 thrust. Witherby (1938) describes the nestling as: "Down darkish 



