THE GOLDFINCH. 263 



brown. The thighs are greyish; the pen feathers velvety 

 black, with white tips, which become smaller in old birds, 

 and are sometimes wanting in the two first feathers. The 

 middle pen feathers are edged on the outer plume for about 

 an inch with bright yellow ; which, in conjunction with the 

 yellow tips of the hindmost large coverts, produces a beautiful 

 bright spot on the wings. The other coverts are black ; the 

 tail is slightly forked, and black ; the two, or, sometimes, the 

 three first pen feathers, having a white spot on the middle of 

 the inner plume, and the rest being tipped with white. Occa- 

 sionally, also, the third feather is quite black at the sides. 



The female is somewhat smaller ; the red stripe round the 

 beak is neither so bright nor so broad ; the cheeks are marked 

 with light brown; the small wing coverts are brown; the 

 back dark brown. The assertion often made by bird-sellers, 

 that the presence or absence of the white speck at the tips of 

 the pen feathers forms a criterion by which the sexes may be 

 distinguished, is not founded on fact. As ill founded are the 

 varieties which they pretend to distinguish by the same charac- 

 teristics, which, after all, depend only on the age and condition 

 of the bird. They contend, also, that a difference of size 

 indicates a corresponding difference of species. In Thuringia, 

 the large Goldfinches, which resemble the Linnet, are called 

 Fir Goldfinches, and are said to have been bred in the pine- 

 forests ; and the smaller Garden Goldfinches, also from the 

 place in which they are supposed to have been reared. A 

 closer observation, however, proves that this distinction has as 

 little foundation as the last. The birds which first chip the 

 shell, are always larger than those last hatched, because they 

 appropriate to themselves an unfair share of food provided by 

 the parents. 



The well-ascertained varieties of the Goldfinch are the 

 following: !. The Yellow-breasted Goldfinch: 2. The 

 White-headed Goldfinch: 3. The Black-headed Goldfinch, 

 of which four specimens were once taken out of a single nest : 

 4. The White Goldfinch : 5. The Black Goldfinch. They 

 are either altogether black, which in confinement is the result 

 of age, or the immoderate use of hemp seed, or they still retain 

 the yellow spot upon the wing. HEEE SCHELBACH, the super- 

 intendent of the menagerie at Cassel, tried the experiment of 

 rearing a brood of Goldfinches in a cage, from which the light 



