PURPLE FINCH. 123 



Now and then you catch a sweet liquid note, 

 but for the most part his song is only a bright 

 warble, without beginning or end. The song 

 sparrow, you know, begins, strikes his upper note 

 three times, and then runs down the scale, finish- 

 ing off usually with a little flourish ; but the pur- 

 ple finch seems to sing in circles, without much 

 musical sense nothing but a general feeling 

 that the sun is warm and bright, and there are 

 plenty of buds and seeds to be found near by. 

 Thoreau puts the song in syllables as a-twitter- 

 witter-witter-wee, a-witter-witter-wee. 



The song is at its best when our pretty finch is 

 in love. Then it has more expression and sweet- 

 ness and resembles the whisper song of the robin. 

 And when he bows and dances before the little 

 brown lady he is trying to win for his bride, his 

 pretty magenta head and back, his rosy throat 

 and white breast, with his graceful ways and ten- 

 der song, make him an attractive suitor. The 

 brown-streaked, sparrowy-looking little creature 

 who seems to ignore him at first, can scarcely help 

 feeling flattered by the devotion of such a hand- 

 some cavalier, and you feel sure that his wooing 

 will come to a happy end. 



Like the waxwings, bobolinks, white-throated 

 sparrows, blue jays, goldfinches, and swifts, ex- 

 cept in the nesting season, the purple finches are 

 generally found in flocks, their favorite haunts 

 being woods and orchards. 



