FAMILY Fringillide. 
wavelika curve. The swoop downward is of course, 
~vith closed wings, and the recovery is effected at the 
bottom of the flight by some rapid flips of the wings, 
then up he goes, and again the cheery notes. It would 
seem as though the writer of those familiar lines— 
“ Or if on joyful wing, 
Cleaving the sky, 
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, 
Upward I fly ”— 
must have seen this bird’s afternoon performance, or he 
never could have chosen a simile so remarkably sugges- 
tive of the joyous heart of the happy little rover. Both 
in this peculiar habit and in character of song the Amer- 
ican Goldfinch resembles its European relative. Audu- 
bon says, in describing tne bird, ‘‘ So much does the song 
of our Goldfinch resemble that of the European species, 
that whilst in France and England, I have frequently 
thought, and with pleasure, that they were the notes of 
our own bird which I heard.” 
Mr. Chapman says, ‘* Their love song is delivered with 
an ecstasy and abandon which carries them off their 
feet, and they circle over the fields sowing the air with 
music, The song has a canarylike character, and while 
it is less varied it possesses a wild ringing quality want- 
ing in the cage-bound bird’s best effort.” But I have 
already explained the real difference between the Ca, 
nary’s and the Goldfinch’s songs, and it only remains 
to say that if the two birds were singing in the same 
tree along with the Purple Finch, the melody of the 
latter with his mellow lower register would completely 
overpower the voices of the other two birds and their 
songs would sound like so many squeaking violin strings! 
There is onlv one occasion when the Goldfinch has 
things all his own way so far as forceful singing is con- 
cerned; this is at five in the morning, in the maple close 
by your open window. There heis with fifty of his fel- 
lows, and all sing ‘‘at the top of their lungs” whether 
you wish to sleep or not. In that situation evidently the 
Purple Finch would be in the minority, song and all. 
82 
