GOLDFINCH. 89 



quickly repeated twit or twit-it. It is incessantly uttering this note, both 

 when flying through the air and as it sits on or clings to the tall stems of 

 thistles and other weeds. The call-note of the male to the female sounds 

 something like the word eaglet. 



It is not improbable that the Goldfinch in many cases pairs for^life. In 

 the depth of winter the birds are often seen in pairs, and as the spring 

 advances the little parties break up and in pairs search out their nesting- 

 sites. The bird at this season often takes up its quarters in a garden or 

 an orchard, sometimes in a grove quite near to a house, where it remains 

 until its young are strong upon the wing. The site usually selected for 

 the nest is in an apple- or a pear-tree, especially the former ; and a branch 

 which is covered with moss or lichen is generally preferred. The bird will 

 also build in a chestnut- or a beech tree, sometimes at the extremity of a 

 long drooping branch, and when in such a situation it is often quite in- 

 accessible. It less frequently selects a site in a whitethorn hedge or in the 

 evergreens in a shrubbery. It is one of the commonest birds in the lower 

 valleys of the Parnassus, and breeds in great numbers in the olive-trees 

 between the site of the temple of Apollo at Delphi and the Gulf of Lepanto, 

 especially in the village gardens. The nest is a charming piece of bird- 

 architecture. It is much smaller than that of the Chaffinch, but is to a 

 certain extent made on the same model. It usually measures from 1^ to 

 2 inches in inside diameter, and is about 1 inch deep. It is often made 

 of moss, lichens, vegetable down, fine roots, and grass-stems, and lined 

 plentifully with feathers and down and a few long hairs. Nests taken 

 in Greece and Asia Minor were almost entirely made of stems of a 

 plant with round flat seed-cases attached, strengthened by rootlets and 

 lined with vegetable down. Some nests are almost entirely made of 

 down and bits of worsted with a few roots, without any feathers. The 

 eggs of the Goldfinch are four or five in number, and are laid by the 

 middle of May. They are greenish white in ground-colour, spotted and 

 streaked with purplish brown and with underlying markings of violet- 

 grey. The spots vary considerably in intensity of colour, and on some 

 eggs are almost black. Some specimens are only scratched and indis- 

 tinctly marked with reddish brown, others are almost spotless. The 

 larger end of the egg is usually the most spotted, where the markings form 

 an irregular zone. Some eggs are much more boldly streaked than others, 

 and the streaks are longer. The eggs vary in length from -7 to '62 inch, 

 and in breadth from '53 to '48 inch. Goldfinch's eggs can generally be 

 distinguished from Linnet's and Greenfinch's, which they much resemble 

 in colour, by their smaller size ; whilst from those of the Lesser Redpole 

 they are easily told by their much lighter ground-colour. From those of 

 the Citril Finch, Serin, and Siskin they are indistinguishable, except in 

 perhaps being blunter and a trifle larger. 



