66 FEATHERED CAPTIVES 



it had not been seen for many years. The goldfinch, 

 so aptly named in science Carduelis elegans the 

 pretty thistle-eater had become one of our rare visit- 

 ants, owing to its popularity as a cage bird and to its 

 being more easily netted by decoy than most other 

 birds. Now it is increasing in number every year. In 

 the spring of 1912 a neighbour of mine, a well-known 

 ornithologist, counted eighty-three goldfinches and 

 siskins on his lawn at one time, a mixed flock of north- 

 ward migrants. 



The secrets of the bird trade may never be laid bare ; 

 but it is known that the rate of mortality is prodigious, 

 both among British-caught birds and in exotic species. 

 How should it be otherwise ? Small birds are, of all 

 living creatures, most incessantly in motion. George 

 Montagu, prince of ornithology, managed to bring a 

 nest containing eight young gold-crested wrens into 

 his study without scaring away the parent birds, who 

 continued to feed their brood. He then set himself to 

 calculate how many trips the little mother made in the 

 course of a summer day, bringing food to her young. 

 He found that during sixteen hours she visited them 

 once in every minute and a half or two minutes; that 

 is, say, thirty-six trips every hour, or 546 between 

 sunrise and twilight. Assuming, as one may surely do, 

 that these trips extended to an average of one hundred 

 yards, that gives the astonishing total of thirty-one 

 miles. A rule-of- three sum will bring out that if a man 

 of six feet high would emulate such a journey by 

 undertaking one in proportion to his superiority in 



