BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 303 



either, so little difference is there in their appearance when on 

 the wing- or perching a little dista.nce away. But the males of 

 the Goldfinches in due time begin to don their courting dress of 

 strongly contrasted colors, and become more exclusive in their 

 association with their own species until the breeding season is 

 over. The song of the Pine Pinch is so much like that of 

 the other species, that I have only learned to distinguish it by 

 its softer tones and lesser volume when both are in act of 

 singing. They build their nests about the beginning of the 

 second week in June, chiefly of twigs of spruce, or larch, in 

 the section where I live, but uniformly of pine where those 

 are found, (with which I have found a few coarse hairs from 

 the tails of cattle in one or two instances) and line it with 

 hairs of different kinds in as pretty a manner as almost any 

 nest I have seen. One nest sent from Princeton, had the larg- 

 est amount of those coarser hairs in its main composition of 

 any I have seen. When these birds are devoted to incubation, 

 they are very rarely seen except specially sought for by one 

 somewhat familiar with them. Indeed their incognito contin- 

 ues until about the second week in August, when families of 

 half a dozen may occasionally be seen flying loosely about the 

 backside of a stubble field, lighting here and there on the 

 fences, or on the branches of some isolated tree left standing 

 in the field for its shade. Later, they may be often detected 

 in scattering flocks of the Goldfinches. These two species 

 become more and more associated as the season advances, 

 until both gradually disappear amongst the latest migrants of 

 the fringiUine family in November even, I have received but 

 little information through my correspondence to aid me in 

 forming any approximate idea of the distribution of this spe- 

 cies within the territory of my investigations. Of course, the 

 principal numbers go still further north to breed, so that it is 

 nowhere at any time an abundant species, if the principal por- 

 tion of the season of migration is excepted. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Tail deeply forked. Above brownish-olive; beneath white- 

 ish, every feather streaked distinctly with dusky. Concealed 

 bases of tail feathers and quills, together with their inner 

 edges, sulphur-yellow; outer edges of quills and tail feathers 

 yellowish- green. Two brownish-white bands on the wing. 



Length, 4.75; wing, 3; tail, 2.20. 



Habitat, North America generally. 



