230 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



southern Labrador. It is also known as the wild canary, yel- 

 low bird, salad bird, lettuce bird and thistle bird. A singular 

 fact is that these birds, although they are here throughout the 

 year, and the male has on his courting suit by the first of May, 

 yet, as a rule, they do not mate until about the first of July. 

 Until then they may be seen flying about in small flocks and 

 having a real good time. 



The male and female are quite unlike in appearance. The 

 bill of the adult male is moderate and of a reddish cinnamon 

 color, tipped with black; iris of the eye brown; forepart and 

 crown of the head and lobes are black ; wings black, except the 

 lesser coverts, which, with a band across the greater ones and 

 the ends of the tertiaries and secondaries, are white ; the cov- 

 erts and inner margin of the tail white, with the remainder of 

 the tail feathers black ; general summer plumage above and be- 

 low a pure lemon or canary yellow; legs of a reddish cinna- 

 mon color. In the winter his color is similar to that of the 

 female, except his wings are of a deeper black color, with whit- 

 ish markings more conspicuous. The adult female above is a 

 yellowish-gray; under parts dull grayish-white, more or less 

 tinged with yellow ; no black in the forehead ; wings and tail 

 much like that of the male. She looks quite like a member of 

 the sparrow family. 



The best time for insectivorous birds to have their young 

 is when there is a good supply of insects and their larvae to 

 feed them. This probably accounts for the fact that this class 

 of birds, as a rule, attend to the rearing of their young in the 

 spring and early summer. It has been suggested, and with 

 some plausibility, that the same reasoning may be applied in 

 accounting for the fact that the American goldfinch does not 

 commence nesting until the first of July. Being members of 

 the finch or sparrow family, their food consists mainly, not of 

 insects, but of seeds, and it is not until in July that their favor- 

 ite food such as the lettuce and thistle seed is ripe. It is, 



"Just as the seeds are fit to fly 



A yellow bird drops deftly down, 

 A living nugget from the sky, 



And lights upon the thistle down." 



