28 Bird Portraits 
Though the Goldfinches are here all winter, they delay nesting 
till very much later than the other resident birds; the Chickadees 
have their first brood already out in the world by the time the 
Goldfinches determine on building. The female is a modest-colored 
little body, as is often the case where the male is bright. The pair 
generally build in July, and choose some thick leafy tree, often a 
maple or poplar, and there, on a limb at a considerable height from 
the ground, construct a very neat nest, deep and cup-shaped, built 
of fine materials and lined with down from plants like the thistle. 
Here five or six bluish white eggs are laid, and when in another 
month the young Goldfinches begin to fly, it is at once evident from 
their sharp, insistent crying. As the calling of the young Orioles is 
a mark of late June, so the notes of the young Goldfinches become 
associated with August. 
Goldfinches are very fond of the seeds of many kinds of com- 
posite flowers; they bite holes in unripe dandelion heads and take 
out the seeds; thistles are another favorite food, and a row of 
sunflowers planted in the garden will not fail to attract them. In 
winter, besides the seeds of weeds, they feed on birch seeds, scattering 
the scales over the snow, and they even pull out the seeds of the 
pitch pine, when the scales begin to loosen toward spring. 
No bird has livelier, more cheerful ways than our Goldfinch, and 
none becomes a greater favorite. People are often at considerable 
pains to remove the dandelion plants from their lawns; if the gay 
flowers themselves do not repay one for their presence, many would 
certainly allow them to remain in order to have the pleasant spectacle, 
in summer, of a flock of yellow Goldfinches scattered about the grass 
and feeding on the seeds. 
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