THE GOLDFINCH. 229 



small, and bluish white, spotted towards the larger end with purplish 

 red of two shades. 



Though Bolton, F. O. Morris, and other writers have long since 

 stated that the young broods of goldfinches were fed on insects. I have 

 now for the first time found the testimony of two eye witnesses to the 

 fact. Mr. Darbey. our sagacious Oxford taxidermist, tells me that the 

 young broods of goldfinches, which he has repeatedly reared in a cage. 

 by allowing the old birds to feed their progeny through the cage wires, 

 have always been fed at first on small green flies, then on flies and 

 thistle seed, and finally on seed alone. Chiddington opened the crop 

 of a young one and bears exactly corroborative evidence. 



Although the goldfinch is a late bird to go to nest, in England at aiv 

 rate (for I have seen continental finches six weeks old on the 14th of 

 June), I incline to think that a good many second broods are hatched. 

 A Keble friend of mine, some four autumns since, found a nest of 

 unfledged goldfinches towards the latter end of September ! 



The young, as soon as they leave the nest, may often be heard on 

 the outskirts of their orchard haunts, recording in low. uncertain 

 twitterings, the notes of their progenitors. So much is song due to 

 imitation, that I not long since heard two brother hybrids, between 

 the siskin and canary, singing most carefully the perfect song of the 

 goldfinch tutor, under which they had been hung for instruction. 



At least forty years have elapsed since Mr. A. E. Knox, then the 

 chief authority on the birds of Sussex, pointed out in his ornithological 

 rambles, how steadily the greater number of goldfinches, at anv rate 

 those that breed in our southern counties, would appear to draw from 

 west to east, prior to crossing the English Channel at the narrowest 

 strait of water. As yet I have had no opportunity of observing this 

 point myself. It is sufficiently obvious that by far the larger number 

 of the goldfinches that breed in Oxfordshire do leave the country 

 before winter. I do not mean to imply that all goldfinches do so. On 

 the contrary, there is no dearth of evidence as to the capture of a few 

 goldfinches in winter ; a dead goldfinch was found in the Parks after 

 the great snowstorm of 1880. But the evidence of George Swayland. 

 the well-known Brighton naturalist, is worth quoting. On page 102, 

 of the Report of the Wild Birds' Protection Committee of 1873, he 

 says : " After the nesting is over, the goldfinches go into the fields and 

 feed on thistle and buttonweed : and about the commencement of 

 October they come co the sea coast, ready to go away. They pass over 

 Brighton and go as far eastward as Dover ; they keep along the coast. 

 When they return in spring, they come right across the water ; they 

 come from the south, but I never saw a bird go from Brighton across ; 

 I never saw it attempted in fact. When they return in April, they all 

 come to the south and fly to the north, for I hear them coming over 

 my head." 



The young goldfinch is eight or ten weeks old when the 

 first red feathers appear about the beak. Mr. .Smith, the Charlbury bird- 

 catcher, tells me that lie once netted a goldfinch in Worcestershire, 



