GOLDFINCH, 62Q 



coverts of the wings are black ; the lower crossed with a white 

 line : the quill-feathers dusky, but part of their inner webs white; 

 the coverts of the tail and vent-feathers white ; the tail black. 



In the spring these birds frequent our gardens, and are very 

 destructive to our fruit-trees, by eating the tender buds. They 

 breed about the latter end of May, or beginning of June, and are 

 seldom seen at that time near houses, as they chuse some very 

 retired place to breed in. These birds are sometimes wholly 

 black. I have heard of a male bullfinch which had changed its 

 colours, after it had been taken in full feather, and with all its 

 fine teints. The first year it began to assume a dull hue, blacken, 

 ing every year, till in the fourth it attained the deepest degree of 

 that colour. This was communicated to be by the Rev. Mr.White, 

 of Selborne. Mr. Morton, in his History of Northamptonshire, 

 gives another instance of such a change ; with this addition, that 

 the year following, after moulting, the bird recovered its native 

 colours. Bullfinches fed entirely on hemp-seed, are aptest to 

 undergo this change. [Pennant, 



SECTION XI. 



Goldfinch. 

 Fringilla carduelis. Linn. 



This is the most beautiful of our hard-billed small birds ; whe- 

 ther we consider its colours, the elegance of its form, or the music 

 of its note. The bill is white, tipt with black ; the base is sur- 

 rounded with a ring of rich scarlet feathers ; from the corners of 

 the mouth to the eyes is a black line ; the cheeks are white ; the 

 top of the head is black ; and the white on the cheeks is bounded 

 almost to the fore part of the neck with black ; the hind part of 

 the head is white ; the back, rump, and breast, are of a fine pale 

 tawny brown, lightest on the two last ; the belly is white ; the 

 covert feathers of the wings, in the male, are black ; the quill- 

 feathers black, marked in their middle with a beautiful yellow ; 

 the tips white ; the tail is black, but most of the feathers marked 

 near their ends with a white spot : the legs are white. 



The female is distinguished from the male by these notes ; the 

 feathers at the end of the bill, in the former, are brown ; in the 

 male black; the lesser coverts of the wings are brown; and the 

 black and yellow in. the wings of the female are less brilliant. The 



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