EASTERN GOLDFINCH 457 



male, and seven by the female, or at the rate of once in every 27.3 

 minutes, thus proving that a much quicker rate of feeding than about 

 once every hour does at times occur." 



Salient points in the life of the young goldfinches, as brought out 

 by Walkinshaw's (1939) study of nests in southern Michigan may be 

 summarized as follows: The body and head at hatching are covered 

 with light grayish natal down. The eyes of some young birds start 

 to open on the second day, but the average date is about 3K days. 

 Until the age of 6 or 7 days the young made little or no noise in the 

 nest, but afterwards, for several days, they are very noisy when their 

 parents return to feed them. At this stage of their development 

 many more are destroyed than at any other period. They leave the 

 nest between the ages of 11 and 15 days, and by that time they fill 

 the nest to capacity. They often perch on the rim or on the near 

 branches when the day to fly arrives, and some fly as far as 100 feet. 



Gross (1938) speaks of the development of the young in a nest 

 obser-ved in Maine. His observations are substantially as foUows: 

 "By the tenth day the birds had grown enormously * * *. Feathers 

 on all tracts were at least partially unsheathed, thus offering sufficient 

 protection and insulation to make brooding less necessary. Even at 

 night the female did not cover them, but roosted in the branches 

 near-by. At such times the young huddled down in the bowl of the 

 nest, their bodies producing enough heat to counteract the coolness 

 of the night air." At the age of 12 days the feathers were "unsheathed 

 to such an extent that all the naked parts were concealed. The yel- 

 low of the breast-feathers and the tones of olive and fuscous brown 

 gave them an appearance of the completed juvenal plumage save for 

 the tufts of down clinging to the ends of some of the feathers. They 

 had increased so much in size that the little bowl of the nest was 

 scarcely large enough to contain them. * * * The time was fast 

 arriving for the young to leave the nest, and on the next day, when 

 they were thirteen days old, the first young ventured out and climbed 

 up one of the slender branches supporting the nest. He was soon 

 followed by a second, and in the course of the next five hours all were 

 out. By the time the last young had left, the first had attempted 

 short flights from branch to branch. * * * The adults and young 

 were seen in the neighborhood for more than a week, and made regular 

 visits to the feeding-shelves and baths provided for them and other 

 birds." I feel confident that all of the six young survived. 



Gross gives the incubation period as 12 days; Walkinshaw (1938) as 

 12 to 14 days; Burns (1915) as 12 to 14 days. 



Andrew J. Berger writes Taber that the oldest birds in a brood are 

 capable of a strong, sustained flight of 50 yards or more when ready to 

 leave the nest, but will flutter to the ground below or near the nest 



