WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 193 
and lowly should come so near to human senti- 
ment and virtue, let such not be too hasty with 
their dissent. Surely they may in reason wait 
till they can point to at least one country where 
the men are as universally faithful to their 
wives and children as the birds are to theirs. 
The red-poll linnets, as I have said, are ir- 
regular visitors in this region; several years 
may pass, and not one be seen; but the gold- 
finch we have with us always. Easily recog- 
nized as he is, there are many well-educated 
New-Englanders, I fear, who do not know him, 
even by sight; yet when that distinguished 
ornithologist, the Duke of Argyll, comes to 
publish his impressions of this country, he avers 
that he has been hardly more interested in the 
‘glories of Niagara” than in this same little 
yellow-bird, which he saw for the first time 
while looking from his hotel window at the 
great cataract. ‘A golden finch, indeed!” he 
exclaims. Such a tribute as this from the pen 
of a British nobleman ought to give Astragali- 
nus tristis immediate entrance into the very 
best of American society. 
It is common to say that the goldfinches wan- 
der about the country during the winter. Un- 
doubtedly this is true in a measure; but I have 
seen things which lead me to suspect that the 
statement is sometimes made too sweeping.’ 
13 
