460 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 p^et i 



feed in a very large June berry tree {Amalanchia laevis) heavily 

 ladened with fully ripened fruit. 

 Alexander F. Skutch writes to us : 



"All through the third week of April, 1931, large flocks of gold- 

 finches were present in the woods near my parents' house on the 

 outskirts of Baltimore. Here they fed in the elm trees, which at 

 this period were green with their clustered keys, as though with an 

 earlier and transient foliage. There was more music in their con- 

 fiding call-notes than in many a bird's song. Hanging head down- 

 ward from the slender elm twigs, the goldfinches plucked the winged 

 fruits; not, so far as I could learn, to eat the small green embryos, but 

 to extract a little white larva, about a miUimeter in length, which 

 infested many of the fruits and caused them to take on an abnormal, 

 irregularly swollen aspect. The birds deftly bit the larvae out of the 

 husks, then let the keys flutter to the ground, until large quantities 

 were strewn beneath the trees where they had been feeding." 



Economic status. — Forbush (1929) summarizes the economic status: 

 "The Goldfinch is generally regarded as a beneficial bird. Its only 

 injurious habit seems to be the destruction of seeds of cultivated 

 sunflowers, cosmos, lettuce, etc., which is sometimes so serious to the 

 seed grower that he is obliged to take measures to protect his crops." 

 Behavior. — The goldfinch is an active little bird, always in the best 

 of spirits. It has a definite personality exemplifying light-hearted 

 cheerfulness, restlessness, sociability, and untiring activity. It seeks 

 the company of its own species and, in the winter, that of its rela- 

 tives, the siskins and redpolls, often moving about with them in 

 large flocks, roving over the fields, feeding together in the birches and 

 alders and among the weeds protruding above the snow. When we 

 come on a lone goldfinch it seems out of its element; it gives a long, 

 sweet call, and appears to look about for companions or to listen for 

 them, and when it sees them or hears their voices in the distance, it 

 goes bounding away to join them. Its flight is deeply undulating; it 

 flies along as if riding the waves of a stormy sea, giving, as it rises to 

 each crest, its little phrase of four happy notes. 



Aretas A. Saunders (1929) summarizes the habitat of the bird in 

 the Adirondack Mountains, N.Y.: "The Goldfinch is not a bird of the 

 forest, but prefers more open country with scattered trees. It lives 

 in orchards, among shade trees, along roadsides, and about the edges 

 of forests." Lawrence H. Walkinshaw's (1938) studies were made in 

 Michigan "on an area of approximately thirty-five acres * * * con- 

 stituting a ditched marsh with its scattered groups of willow, dogwood, 

 buttonbush, other shrubs and small trees, together with a narrow 

 bordering highland also sparingly covered with shrubs, small aspens 

 and occasional larger trees." 



