THE AMERICAN GOLDFINCH. 47 
We are rewarded for our occasional hospitality by the sight of Redpoll 
at his best. During the actual breeding season, we are told by a competent 
observer in Greenland, Holbcell, the male not only becomes exceeding shy but 
loses his rosy coloring. It is hardly to be supposed that this loss of color is a 
protective measure, but rather that it is a result of the exhaustive labors incident 
to the season. Nature, in that forbidding clime, cannot afford to dress a busy 
workman in fine clothes. It is noteworthy in this connection that caged Red- 
polls also lose their rosy tints, never to regain them. 
Nos 25. 
AMERICAN GOLDFINCH. 
A. O. U. No. 529. Astragalinus tristis (Linn.). 
Synonyms.—WiLp Canary; YELLOW-BIRD (wrongly so called) ; TuistiE- 
BIRD. : 
Description.—Adult male in breeding piuimage: Back and below bright 
yellow, whitening on upper tail-coverts; crown-patch black; wings black with 
white-tipped coverts and secondaries; tail black, each feather with white spot on 
inner web. Adult female: Above grayish brown or olivaceous; wings and tail 
dusky rather than black; below whitish with buffy or yellow suffusion, brightest 
on throat. Male in winter: Like female except that wings and tail are black; 
the plumage tends also to more positive whites. Length 5.00 (127.); wing 
about 2.75 (69.9) ; tail 2.00 (50.8) ; bill .40 (10.2). 
Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; black and yellow contrasting; undu- 
lating flight; Canary-like notes. 
Nest, a beautiful, compact structure of vegetable fiber, “hemp,” grasses, etc., 
lined with vegetable cottons or thistle-down, and placed at different heights in 
trees or bushes, usually in upright crotches. Eggs, 3-6, pale bluish white, un- 
SPOLEed ee Aven SIZe>, 05) x52 @1Os5) x 1322) 
General Range.—Temperate North America; winters mainly within the 
United States; breeds from middle regions north. 
Range in Ohio.—Of universal distribution,—perhaps less plentiful in south- 
ern part of state. 
“HANDSOME is that handsome does,” we are told, but the Goldfinch 
fulfills both conditions in the proper sense, and does not require the doubtful 
apology of the proverb, which was evidently devised for plain folk. One is at 
a loss to decide whether nature awarded the Goldfinch his suit of fine clothes 
in recognition of his dauntless cheer or whether he is only happy because of his 
panoply of jet and gold. At any rate he is the bird of sunshine the year around, 
happy, careless, free. Rollicking companies of them rove the country side, 
