268 



THE GOLDFINCH. 



of its fondness for the downy seeds of a class of plants, which 

 would be much more troublesome to the agriculturist, were it not 

 for the assistance rendered by this bright-winged Goldspink, or 

 Goldie, as the Scotch call him. This is a bird very generally 

 distributed throughout these islands, where it permanently re- 

 sides, affecting most the wooded and cultivated districts, although, 

 for reasons which it seems difficult to explain, while it is plentiful 

 in some of these districts, in others, which appear to possess the 

 same advantages, it is extremely rare. MACGILLIVKAY gives 

 us the following agreeable picture of the Thistle Finch enjoying 

 its favourite food and pasture : " Let us stroll abroad on this 

 fine autumnal day, when the sun shines brightly on the yellow 

 fields, and the thistle-down floats along on the gentle breeze, 

 gliding like snow-flakes over the river. There, on that old 

 pasture, is the source of the plumy eruption, a forest of tall 

 weeds, which the husbandman ought to have pulled up and burnt 

 before they had time to perfect their seeds. See, tufts of down 

 are scattered about by those little birds, that seem bent on de- 

 molishing all the heads, anthodia or capitula, as the botanists 

 term them. How curiously they hang on the prickly stems and 

 leaves with what adroitness do they thrust their bills into the 

 heart of the involucres and how little do they regard us as they 

 ply their pleasant pursuit, unconscious of danger, and piping 

 their mellow call-notes !" 



" Long as I have noticed this bird," says KNAPP, " it has ap- 

 peared to me that it never makes any plants generally its food, 

 except those of the syngenesia class, and on these it diets nearly 

 the whole year. In the spring season it picks out the seeds from 

 the fir cones. During the winter months, it very frequently 

 visits our gardens, feeding on the seeds of the groundsel (Senecio 

 vulgaris), which chiefly abounds in cultivated places, and vege- 

 tates there throughout the coldest seasons. This, however, is a 

 humble plant ; and when covered by the snow, the poor birds are 

 half famished for want. We then see them striving to satisfy 

 their hunger by picking some solitary green head of the plant 

 remaining above the frozen snow ; and so tame, that they will 

 suffer a very near approach before they take their flight. As the 

 frost continues, our little garden visitors diminish daily, and by 

 spring only a few pairs remain of all the flocks of autumn. Yet 

 it is very remarkaole, notwithstanding this natural predilection, 

 how readily this bird conforms to a perfect change in its diet, and 

 in all the habits of its life. Most of our little songsters, when 

 captured as old birds, become in confinement sullen and dis- 

 pirited ; want of exercise, and of particular kinds of food, and 

 their changes, alter the quality of the fluids : they become fat- 



