120 FRINGILLIDJE. 



The young are said to be fed for a time with caterpillars 

 and other insects, and, when able to follow their parents, they 

 rove together in small flocks over commons and uncultivated 

 lands to feed on the seeds of the thistle, burdock and dande- 

 lion, with chickweed, groundsel and plantain. While thus 

 engaged, they may be seen clinging in all positions to the 

 stems, picking out their favourite portions. If approached 

 too near, the little party, one by one, move off to the next 

 patch, with undulating flight, twittering as they rise, and 

 one may with Grahame say of each, 



" and see him stretch his wing, — 



A fairy fan of golden spokes it seems." 



Birds of Scotland (1806), p. 49. 



Thus they fare through autumn and winter, living chiefly 



on various seeds, particularly those of the different kinds of 



syngenesious plants *, and do good service to the agriculturist 



by consuming the prolific source of many a noxious weed.f 



Knapp says that in spring the Goldfinch picks out the seeds 



from fir-cones, and Thompson remarks that he has observed, 



though very rarely, remains of coleopterous insects in its 



stomach, in which fragments of stone or brick were always 



present. 



The Goldfinch breeds regularly in almost every English 



county, Northumberland perhaps excepted. Throughout 



Great Britain, however, it is a regular though partial 



migrant. To this fact Neville Wood in 1839 was, perhaps, 



the first to draw attention (Br. Song-Birds, p. 364), and 



the late Mr. Newman (Zool. p. 984) afterwards strongly 



insisted on it, shewing that the bird absolutely disappeared 



* Prof. Steenstrup has noticed (Vidensk. Meddelelser Naturh. Foren. 1863, pp. 

 373 377) two singular traits in this bird's habits, as observed in Denmark, which 

 seem to have not been before recorded. The first is that it frequently attacks a 

 twig of lime or willow, and, dexterously stripping off the bark with its pointed 

 bill, devours the inner tissue, leaving the shreds of the bark hanging down. The 

 second is that, when feeding on a bough the sprays of which are not individually 

 stiff enough to bear its weight and give it a firm footing, it grasps several of them 

 and, forming them as it were into a faggot, is thus enabled to maintain a hold 

 sufficiently steady for its purpose. 



f This is however denied by M. Quepat in his 'Monographic du Chardonneret ' 

 (Paris: 1S73). 



