American Goldfinch {Astragaiinus tnsHs) 



By I. N. Mitchell 



Length about five inches; sexes unhke; nest a thick walled, compact, 

 well made cup, outside of fine grasses, fibres of bark, wool and moss, inside 

 thickly lined with thistle-down, wool and cotton ; eggs three to six. 



Range : United States ; breeds from middle regions north, and winters 

 mainly within the United States. 



This is the yellow bird that so many people call the wild canary. The 

 resemblance between our wild finch and the cultivated immigrant from the 

 Canary Islands is so striking, sometimes, both in color and voice, that the 

 name seems almost justified. Let us be patriotic, however, and claim our own 

 bird as the American goldfinch. How well the name suggests his clear, beauti- 

 ful, yellow body color. This, with his black crown, wings and tail make the 

 male bird an easy one to know. The female, though dressed in the same 

 general colors, is much harder to identify. The yellow is darkened to a 

 brownish olive, and the black of the wings and tail is a dusky, brownish black. 

 The crown patch is wanting. She may be known by the company she keeps 

 better, perhaps, than by the colors of her coat.- In the fall the male changes 

 color and then looks like the female. 



The goldfinch is one of the birds that is easy to recognize by the man- 

 ner of flight. He adopted the coaster-brake style of locomotion ages before 

 the days of the bicycle. He pumps vigorously for a few strokes and sends 

 himself forward on an upward, wave-like curve, then takes it easy for a bit 

 and falls through another graceful curve. He seems to enjoy the coasting 

 slide and sings "Now, here we go" as he falls. The wavy line of flight and 

 the song "per-chic-o-ree" as so many know it, are in a peculiar adulatory 

 manner. 



The voice of the goldfinch is peculiarly soft and clear. His call is a short 

 "sweet" and "dearie" that arouses in his human hearer feelings of tenderness 

 and affection caused by no other wild bird and rivaled only by those sug- 

 gested by the sweetest notes of the canary. In the mating season the song 

 is prolonged and canary like. To hear a flock of them singing in chorus is 

 an event of a season. 



Being a seed eater, the goldfinch finds it possible to remain in the northern 

 states throughout the winter. They are so much less noticeable in their 

 winter plumage that many people do not recognize them. They rove through 

 the fields in large flocks feeding on the seeds of the weeds that stick above 

 the snow. 



They are most abundant during the last week of April and the first week 

 of May. This may be because many of them have returned from farther south. 



