BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 26 1 



he gives it as a full species under tlie name Acatil/iis brewsterii, he says that "possibly it is a 

 liybrid of Acanthi's liiiaria and Spiiiiis pinus." I made the same suggestion more than twenty 

 years ago,' and it has since derived added probability from the fact that the bird continues to be 

 known only from the type specimen,'- which is still in my collection.] 



149. Astragalinus tristis (Linn.). 

 American Goldfinch. Goldfinch. Yellow-bird. Thistle-bird. 



Very common permanent resident. 



NESTING dates. 



July 21 — 31. 



If an accurate census could be taken of the Goldfinches present in the 

 Cambridge Region during the different months of the year, the results would 

 probably show that the birds are most numerous in autumn and early spring, and 

 least so in summer ; they are most conspicuous, however, in July and August, 

 when they are very generally dispersed and when the males attract especial 

 attention by their striking black and gold plumage, sweet songs and galloping 

 love flights. Goldfinches used to breed nearly everywhere in and near Cam- 

 bridge ; in shade trees along our city streets ; in orchards throughout the farm- 

 ing country ; most abundantly of all in the maple woods and willow thickets 

 which once covered so large a portion of the Fresh Pond Swamps. Within the 

 past fifteen or twenty years they have nearly ceased to nest in localities where 

 English Sparrows have become abundant, but in early summer a few breeding 

 pairs still frequent that now densely populated part of Cambridge lying between 

 Harvard Square and Mount Auburn, and broods of young birds, with their 

 parents, continue to visit our garden in late August and early September, when 

 the seeds of the sunflowers are ripe. 



Goldfinches are chiefly confined in winter to outlying, thinly settled districts, 

 where one may find them almost anywhere, roving about in flocks containing 

 from eight or ten to forty or fifty birds each. At this season they often associ- 

 ate with Redpolls and Pine Siskins, and all three species may be sometimes seen 

 together, feeding on the seeds of weeds in neglected fields or on those of alders 

 and birches in deciduous woodlands. The Yellow-birds also subsist largely on 

 the seeds of pitch pines, when these trees are well supplied with ripe cones. 



1 W. Brewster, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, VI, 1881, 225. 

 ^No. 756, collection of William Brewster. 



