300 OUR NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



save its long dark gi*een boughs and black seed- 

 vessels, lias the linnet sung its latest song. A 

 gleam of sunshine from a blue sky wakens the 

 glad heart of the linnet in autumn, and sometimes 

 even on a winter's day, and those sweet wild notes 

 are again heard, though the strain is weaker and 

 more plaintive, and seems more accordant with the 

 melancholy tones of the wind, which are now 

 bringing down the leaves at every gust, than with 

 all the joyous influences which unite with the 

 clear and brilliant song of April. 



The linnet lives in great harmony and friend- 

 ship with its fellows, claiming no little spot, like 

 the robin or nightingale, as its own peculiar 

 domain, but sharing the sun and shower, the 

 flowers and fruits, with any winged creatm-e that 

 comes thither. It eats the seeds of the thistle, 

 ragworts, and any other of the compound flowers 

 which in autumn are so numerous ; and picks the 

 seed out of the seed-vessel of the little scarlet 

 pimpernel, or the starry stitchwort, hunting out 

 this food with its companions, so merrily and good- 

 temperedly, that they form a great contrast to 

 some companies of birds which we see contesting 

 every seed or worm found by another, as if it had 



