264 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



[Spinus spinus (Linn.). European Siskin. On August 11, 1904, I found a European 

 Siskin in our garden where it was feeding, in company with an American Goldfinch, on the 

 seeds of some wild sunflowers. It was a male, apparently adult, with the characteristic black 

 areas of the throat and forehead well developed, if somewhat less extensive than in spring birds. 

 Its plumage was bright and fresh, for it had but just completed the midsummer moult. Indeed 

 some of the new feathers, especially those of the wings and tail, had not attained their full 

 length. The bird was seen again in the same place — always accompanied by one or more Gold- 

 finches — on the 13th and 17th of the month. At times it was tame and unsuspicious, allowing 

 me to approach it closely, at others alert and wary, rising at the least alarm and dashing off over 

 the treetops. There was nothing in either its appearance or behavior to suggest that it had ever 

 been caged, but the chances are, of course, that it had originally escaped from captivity, although 

 it may have reached Massachusetts by the aid of its wings alone, perhaps by way of Greenland 

 where so very many European birds have occurred. Indeed the case is distinctly different from 

 that of such a species as the Java Sparrow, for example. The latter has been found' in tlie 

 Cambridge Region, but I exclude it from consideration because thei'e seems to be no possibility 

 that it can ever wander, unaided, so far from its natural home.] 



[Carduelis carduelis (Linn.). European Goldfinch. The earliest record known to me of 

 the occurrence of the European Goldfinch in the Cambridge Region is that by Dr. Allen, 2 who, 

 on February 28, 1865, "saw a single male on Qiiincy street, Cambridge, that had probably es- 

 caped from a cage. It was feeding on the seeds of the larch and appeared fully at home." 



I have a pair of mounted specimens' of the European Goldfinch which I shot on April 21, 

 1S75, in an old apple orchard lying just to the noi'thward of Gray's Woods, Cambridge, near 

 the shores of Fresh Pond. These birds were very wary and restless, leading me a long chase 

 before they were finally secured. Mv notes state that their flight resembled that of the American 

 Goldfinch, tliat they alighted on the topmost twigs of the trees, and that they both uttered, at fre- 

 quent intervals, a loud, harsh ' ker-dac, ker-dee^ Thej- were in full nuptial plumage and, as I 

 found on skinning and dissecting them, in robust physical condition, with their reproductive 

 organs well developed. Their exceeding shyness, coupled with the fact that they bore no marks 

 of ever having been caged, convinced me that they were wild birds, while their behavior and 

 the development of their sexual organs suggested that they might have nested in the old 

 orchard or its immediate neighborhood, had they been left there unmolested a few weeks longer. 



Mr. Faxon tells me that he saw a European Goldfinch in Waltham on March 7, 1891, and 

 Mr. Ralph Hoffmann has reported^ meeting with another in Arlington, on November 5, iSgS. 



The European Goldfinch has also been noted in Brookline, and there is a record* of its 

 breeding within the northern confines of the cit^' of Worcester, in July, 1890, when a nest con- 

 taining five eggs was taken, with the female parent, "by a young collector The nest 



was placed in an apple tree about seven feet from [the] ground," It was "made of grass" and 

 "lined with hair, thread, feathers and vegetable fibre."] 



■ J. A. Allen, Auk, II, 1885, 314. 



''■]. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 635. 



'Male, no. 12S, female, no. 129, collection of William Brewster. 



^R. Hoffmann, Auk, XVI, 1899, 196. 



'C. K. Reed, Ornithologist and Oologist, XV, 1890, 119. 



