GOLDFINCH. 539 



sanction, by adoption, of Baron Cuvier, and several other 

 naturalists. These birds belong to M. Temminck's third 

 section of the Finches, Gros-bec, distinguished by the term 

 Longicones. 



Gay plumage, lively habits, an agreeable form and song, 

 with a disposition to become attached to those who feed 

 them, are such strong recommendations, that the Goldfinch 

 has been, and will probably long continue to be, one of the 

 most general cage favourites. So well also do the birds of 

 this species bear confinement, that they have been known to 

 live ten years in captivity, continuing in song the greater 

 part of each year. This tendency to sing and call make 

 them valuable as brace birds, decoy birds, and call birds, to 

 be used by the bird-catcher with his ground nets ; while the 

 facility with which others are captured, the numbers to be 

 obtained, and the constant demand for them by the public, 

 render the Goldfinch one of the most important species in- 

 cluded within the bird-dealer's traffic. 



Goldfinches, and the small Finches generally, are also 

 favourites on another account : they are taught, without 

 much difficulty, to perform a variety of amusing tricks, 

 such as to draw up water for themselves by a small thimble- 

 sized bucket, or to raise the lid of a small box to obtain 

 the seed within. Mr. Syme, in his History of British 

 Song Birds, when speaking of the Sieur Roman, who some 

 years since exhibited Goldfinches, Linnets, and Canaries, 

 wonderfully trained, relates, that one appeared dead, and 

 was held up by the tail or claw, without exhibiting any 

 signs of life ; a second stood on its head with its claws in 

 the air ; a third imitated a Dutch milk-maid going to 

 market with pails on its shoulders ; a fourth mimicked a 

 Venetian girl looking out at a window ; a fifth appeared as 

 a soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel ; and the sixth 

 acted as a cannoneer, with a cap on its head, a firelock on 



