FOOD OF THE GOLDFINCH. 237 



along the air, marking by this peculiar feature the 

 autumn of our year. On our commons, and about 

 our thistly hedge-rows, flocks of goldfinches (frin- 

 gilla carduelis) , the united produce of the summer 

 months, are sporting and glistening in the sunny 

 beam, scattering all over the turf the down of the 

 thistle, as they pick out the seed for their food. 

 But this beautiful native has only a few short weeks 

 in which it will have liberty to enjoy society and 

 life. Our bird-catchers will soon entrap it ; and of 

 those that escape their toils, few will survive to the 

 spring, should our winter prove a severe one. Long 

 as I have noticed this bird, it has appeared to me 

 that it never makes any plants generally its food, 

 except those of the syngenesia * class, and on these 

 it diets nearly the whole year. In the spring season 

 it picks out the seeds from the fir cones. During 

 the winter months it very frequently visits our 

 gardens, feeding on the seeds of the groundsel (se- 

 necio vulgaris), which chiefly abounds in cultivated 

 places, and vegetates there throughout the coldest 

 seasons. This, however, is a humble plant ; and 

 when covered by the snow, the poor birds are half 

 famished for want. We then see them striving to 

 satisfy their hunger by picking some solitary green 

 head of the plant remaining above the frozen snow; 

 and so tame, that they will suffer a very near ap- 

 proach before they take flight. As the frost con- 



* Goldfinches occasionally pick out the seeds of the field scabious, 

 the florets of which, united in one head, present ail appearance not 

 unlike the syugenesious plants. 



